W^H

^

^%mf4

h^Miiu

Forgotten Books of the American Nursery

The DevU and the 'Disobedient Child

FORGOTTEN BOOKS

OF

THE AMERICAN NURSERY

A History of the Development of
the American Story-Book

BY

ROSALIE V. HALSEY

BOSTON

Charles E. Goodspeed iS Co.

1911

Copyright^ igii^ hy C, E, Goodspeed & Co,

•
Of this hook seven hundred copies were printed in November
igii^ hy D. B, Updike, at ^he Merrymount Press, Boston

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introdu£iory 3

II. The Play-Book in England SS

III. J^ewbery's Books in America 59

IV. Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery 89

V. The Child and his Book at the End of the

Eighteenth Century 121

VI. Toy-Books in the early Nineteenth Century 147

VII. American Writers and English Critics 191

Index 233

2i=^ni RA

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Devil and the Disobedient Child Frontispiece

From "The Prodigal Daughter." Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5,
Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?] ^^^.

Page

The Devil appears as a French Gentleman 26

From "The Prodigal Daughter.'' Sold at the Printing Office, No. 5,
Cornhill, Boston. [J. and J. Fleet, 1789?]

Title-page from ''The Child* s New Play-thing" 44

Printed by J. Draper; J. Edwards in Boston [1750]. Now in the
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

Title-page from ''A Little Pretty Pocket-Book*' 47

Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, mdcclxxxvii. Now in the
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

A page from "^ Little Pretty Pocket-Book" 49

Printed by Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, mdcclxxxvii. Now in the
New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations

John Newbery's Advertisement of Children s Books 60

From the "Pennsylvania Gazette" of November 15, 1750

Title-page of " The New Gift for Children " 70

Prmted by Zechariah Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Miss Fanny's Maid 74

Illustration from "The New Gift for Children," printed by Zecha-
riah Fowle, Boston, 1762. Now in the Library of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania

A page from a Catalogue of Children's Books
printed by Isaiah Thomas 106

From "The Pidlure Exhibition," Worcester, mdcclxxxviii

[ vii]

Illustrations

Illustration of Riddle XIV no

From "The Puzzling- Cap," printed by John Adams, Philadelphia,
1805

Frontispiece from ''The History of Little Goody
Two-Shoes'* 117

From one of The First Worcester Edition, prmted by Isaiah Thomas
in MDccLxxxvii. Now in the Library of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania

Sir Walter Raleigh and his Man 125

Copper-plate illustration from "Little Truths," prmted in Philadel-
phia by J. and J. Crukshank in 1800

Foot Ball 126

Copper-plate illustration from "Youthful Recreations,** prmted in
Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson about 1802

Jacob Johnson s Book-Store in Philadelphia about
1800 155

A Wall-paper Book-Cover 165

From "Lessons for Children from Four to Five Years Old," printed
in Wilmington (Delaw^are) by Peter Brynberg in 1804

Tom the Piper s Son 1 70

Illustration and text engraved on copper by William Charles, of Phila-
delphia, in 1808

A Kind and Good Father 1 72

Woodcut by Alexander Anderson for "The Prize for Youthful
Obedience," printed in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson in 1807

A Virginian 174

Illustration from "People of all Nations," printed in Philadelphia by
Jacob Johnson in 1807

[ vi" ]

Illustrations

A Baboon 1 74

Illustration from **A Familiar Description of Beasts and Birds,**
printed in Boston by Lincoln and Edmands in 1 8 1 3

Drest or Undrest 176

Illustration from **The Daisy,'* published by Jacob Johnson in 1808

Little Nancy 182

Probably engraved by William Charles for "Little Nancy, or, the
Punishment of Greediness,** published in Philadelphia by Morgan &
Yeager about 1830

Children of the Cottage 1 96

Engraved by Joseph I. Pease for **The Youth's Sketch Book,** pub-
lished in Boston by Lilly, Wait and Company in 1834

Henrietta 200

Engraved by Thomas Illman for **The American Juvenile Keep-
sake,'* published in Brockville, U. C, by Horace Billings & Co. in
1835

A Child and her Doll 206

Illustration from "Little Mary,** Part II, published in Boston by
Cottons and Barnard in 183 1

The Little Runaway 227

Drawn and engraved by J. W. Steel for "AfFe6lion*s Gift,** pub-
lished in New York by J. C. Riker in 1832

CHAPTER I

IntroduSlory

' 4

Thy life to mend
This hook attend.

The Nenv England Tutor

London (1702-14)

To be brought up in fear
And learn ABC.

F ox E , Book of Martyrs

Forgotten Booh of the American Nursery

CHAPTER I

Introdudtory

A SHELF full of books belonging to the American
. children of colonial times and of the early days of the
Republic presents a strangely unfamiliar and curious appear-
ance. If chronologically placed, the earliest coverless chap-
books are hardly noticeable next to their immediate suc-
cessors with wooden sides; and these, in turn, are dominated
by the gilt, silver, and many colored bindings of diminutive
dimensions which hold the stories dear to the childish heart
from Revolutionary days to the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Then bright blue, salmon, yellow, and marbled paper
covers make a vivid display which, as the century grows older,
fades into the sad-colored cloth bindings thought adapted to
many children's books of its second quarter.

An examination of their contents shows them to be equally
foreign to present day ideas as to the desirable charaderistics
for children's literature. Yet the crooked black type and crude
illustrations of the wholly religious episodes related in the
oldest volumes on the shelf, the didadic and moral stories
with their tiny type-metal, wood, and copper-plate pidures of
the next groups; and the " improving" American tales adorned
with blurred colored engravings, or stiff steel and wood illus-
trations, that were produced for juvenile amusement in the
early part of the nineteenth century, — all are as interesting

[3]

J' f ' !>:'.' ': '■ Forgotten Books of the

to the lover of children as they are unattradive to the modem
children themselves. The little ones very naturally find the
stilted language of these old stories unintelligible and the
artificial plots bewildering; but to one interested in the adult
literature of the same periods of history an acquaintance with
these amusement books of past generations has a peculiar
charm and value of its own. They then become not merely curi-
osities, but the means of tracing the evolution of an American
literature for children.

To the student desiring an intimate acquaintance with any
civilized people, its lighter literature is always a great aid to
personal research; the more trivial, the more detailed, the
greater the worth to the investigator are these pen-pidures
as records of the nation he wishes to know. Something of this
value have the story-books of old-fashioned childhood. Trivial
as they undoubtedly are, they nevertheless often contain our
best sketches of child-life in the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries, — a life as different from that of a twentieth
century child as was the adult society of those old days from
that of the present time. They also enable us to mark as is
possible in no other way, the gradual development of a body
of writing which, though lagging much behind the adult
literature, was yet also afFeded by the local and social condi-
tions in America.

Without attempting to give the history of the evolution
of the ABC book in England — the legitimate ancestor
of all juvenile books — two main topics must be briefly dis-
cussed before entering upon the proper matter of this volume.
The first relates to the family life in the early days of the

[4]

American Nursery

Massachusetts Commonwealth, the province that produced
the first juvenile book. The second topic has to do with the
literature thought suitable for children in those early Puritan
days. These two subjeds are closely related, the second being
dependent upon the first. Both are necessary to the history
of these quaint toy volumes, whose stories lack much mean-
ing unless the conditions of life and literature preceding them
are understood.

When the Pilgrim Fathers, seeking freedom of faith,
founded their first settlements in the new country, one of their
earliest efforts was direded toward firmly establishing their
own religion. This, though nominally free, was eventually,
under the Mathers, to become a theocracy as intolerant as that
faith from which they had fled. The rocks upon which this
religion was builded were the Bible and the Catechism. In this
history of toy-books the catechism is, however, perhaps almost
the more important to consider, for it was a produd of the
times, and regarded as indispensable to the proper training
of a family.

The Puritan conception of life, as an error to be redified
by suffering rather than as a joy to be accepted with thanks-
giving, made the preparation for death and the dreadful Day
of Judgment the chief end of existence. The catechism,
therefore, with its fear-inspiring description of Hell and the
consequences of sin, became inevitably the chief means of
instruding children in the knowledge of their sinful inherit-
ance. In order to insure a supply of catechisms, it was voted
by the members of the company in sixteen hundred and
twenty-nine, when preparing to emigrate, to expend "3 shil-

[5]

Forgotten Books of the

lings for 2 dussen and ten catechismes." * A contrad was also
made in the same year with "sundry intended ministers for
catechising, as also in teaching, or causing to be taught the
Companyes servants & their children, as also the salvages and
their children." f Parents, especially the mothers, were contin-
ually exhorted in sermons preached for a century after the
founding of the colony, to catechize the children every day,
"that," said Cotton Mather, "you may be continually drop-
ping something of the Catechism upon them : Some Honey
out of the Rock"! Indeed, the learned divine seems to have
regarded it as a soothing and toothsome morsel, for he even
imagined that the children cried for it continuously, saying :
" 0 our dear Parents, Acquaint us with the Great God, . . . het us
not go from your lender Knees, down to the Place of Dragons,
Oh! not Parents, but Ostriches: Not Parents, but Prodigies "%

Much dissension soon arose among the ministers of the
settlements as to which catechism should be taught. As the
result of the discussion the " General Corte," which met in
sixteen hundred and forty-one, " desired that the elders would
make a catechism for the instruction of youth in the grounds of
religion r §

To meet this request, several clergymen immediately re-
sponded. Among them was John Cotton, who presumably
prepared a small volume which was entitled " Milk for Babes,
Drawn out of the Breast of Both Testaments. Chiefly for the
spiritual nourishment of Boston Babes in either England : But
may be of like use for any children." For the present purpose

* Records of Mass. Bay, vol. i, p. 37 h. f Ibid., vol. i, p. 376.

X Ford, The New England Primer, p. 83. § Records of Mass. Bay, vol. i, p. 328.

[6]

American Nursery

the importance of this little book lies in the supposition that
it was printed at Cambridge, by Daye, between sixteen hun-
dred and forty-one and sixteen hundred and forty-five, and
therefore was the first book of any kind written and printed
in America for children; — an importance altogether different
from that attached to it by the author's grandson, Cotton
Mather, when he asserted that "Milk for Babes" would be
"valued and studied and improved till New England cease
to be New England."*

To the little colonials this "Catechism of New England"
was a great improvement upon any predecessor, even upon
the Westminster Shorter Catechism, for it reduced the one
hundred and seven questions of that famous body of dodrine
to sixty-seven, and the longest answer in "Milk for Babes"
contained only eighty-four words.f

As the century grew older other catechisms were printed.
The number produced before the eighteenth century bears
witness to the diverse views in a community in which they
were considered an essential for every member, adult or child.
Among the six hundred titles roughly computed as the out-
put of the press by seventeen hundred in the new country,
eleven different catechisms may be counted, with twenty edi-
tions in all; of these the titles of four indicate that they were
designed for very little children. In each community the pas-
tor appointed the catechism to be taught in the school, and
joined the teacher in drilling the children in its questions and
answers. Indeed, the answers were regarded as irrefutable in
those uncritical days, and hence a strong shield and buckler

* Ford, The Neiu England Primer^ p. 92. j- Ibid,

[7]

Forgotten Books of the

against manifold temptations provided by "yt ould deluder
Satan." To offset the task of learning these dodrines of the
church, it is probable that the mothers regaled the little ones
with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together
around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or
asked eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twi-
light. Tales such as "Jack the Giant Killer," " Tom Thumb,"
the "Children in the Wood," and "Guy of Warwick," were
orally current even among the plain people of England, though
frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore it
is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colo-
nists. In fad, it is known that John Dunton, in sixteen hun-
dred and eighty-six, sold in his Boston warehouse " The His-
tory of Tom Thumb," which he facetiously offered to an igno-
rant customer "in folio with Marginal notes." Besides these
orally related tales of enchantment, the children had a few
simple pastimes, but at first the few toys were necessarily of
home manufadure. On the whole, amusements were not en-
couraged, although " In the year sixteen hundred and ninety-
five Mr. Higginson," writes Mrs. Earle, "wrote from Massa-
chusetts to his brother in England, that if toys were imported
in small quantity to America, they would sell." And a ven-
ture of this charader was certainly made by seventeen hun-
dred and twelve in Boston. Still, these were the exception in
a commonwealth where amusements were considered as wiles
of the Devil, against whom the ministers constantly warned
the congregations committed to their charge.

Home in the seventeenth century — and indeed in the eight-
eenth century — was a place where for children the rule "to

[8]

^y

American Nursery

be seen, not heard," was stridly enforced. To read Judge
Sewall's diary is to be convinced that for children to obtain
any importance in life, death was necessary. Funerals of little
ones were of frequent occurrence, and were conduded with
great ceremony, in which pomp and meagre preparation were
strangely mingled. Baby Henry Sewall's funeral procession,
for instance, included eight ministers, the governor and mag-
istrates of the county, and two nurses who bore the little
body to the grave, into which, half full of water from the rag-
ing storm, the rude coffin was lowered. Death was kept before
the eyes of every member of the colony; even two-year-old
babies learned such mournful verse as this:

"I, in the Burying Place may See
Graves Shorter than I;
From Death's Arreft no age is free
Young Children too may die;
My God, may such an awful Sight
Awakening be to me!
Oh! that by Grace I might
For Death prepared be.".

When the younger members of the family are otherwise men-
tioned in the Judge's diary, it is perhaps to note the parents'
pride in the eigh teen-months-old infant's knowledge of the
catechism, an acquirement rewarded by the gift of a red apple,
but which suggests the reason for many funerals. Or, again,
difficulties with the alphabet are sorrowfully put down; and
also delinquencies at the age of four in attending family prayer,
with a full account of punishments meted out to the culprit.
Such details are, indeed, but natural, for under the stem con-
ditions imposed by Cotton and the Mathers, religion looms

[9]

\i

Forgotten Books of the

large in the foreground of any sketch of family life handed
down from the first century of the Massachusetts colony. Per-
haps the very earliest pidure in which a colonial child with
a book occupies the centre of the canvas is that given in a
letter of Samuel Sewall's. In sixteen hundred and seventy-one
he wrote with pride to a friend of "little Betty, who though
Reading passing well, took Three Moneths to Read the first
Volume of the Book of Martyrs" as she sat by the fire-light at
night after her daily task of spinning was done. Foxe's "Mar-
tyrs" seems gruesome reading for a little girl at bedtime, but
it was so popular in England that, with the Bible and Cate-
chism, it was included in the library of all households that
could afford it.

Just ten years later, in sixteen hundred and eighty-one, Bun-
yan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was printed in Boston by Samuel
Green, and, being easily obtainable, superseded in a measure the
"Book of Martyrs "as a household treasure. Bunyan's dream,
according to Macaulay, was the daily conversation of thou-
sands, and was received in New England with far greater eager-
ness than in the author's own country. The children undoubt-
edly listened to the talk of their elders and gazed with wide-
open eyes at the execrable plates in the imported editions
illustrating Christian's journey. After the deaths by fire and
sword of the Martyrs, the Pilgrim's difficulties in the Slough
of Despond, or with the Giant Despair, afforded pleasurable
reading; while Mr. Great Heart's courageous cheerfulness
brought pradically a new charaderistic into Puritan litera-
ture.

To Bunyan the children in both old and New England

[ i°]

American Nursery

were indebted for another book, entitled "A Book for Boys
and Girls: or, Country Rhimes for Children. By J. B. Licenfed
and Entered according to Order." "^^ Printed in London, it
probably soon made its way to this country, where Bunyan
was already so well known. "This little odavo volume," writes
Mrs. Field in "The Child and his Book," "was considered a
perfed child's book, but was in fad only the literary milk of
the unfortunate babes of the period." In the light of modem
views upon juvenile reading and entertainment, the Puritan
ideal of mental pabulum for little ones is worth recording in
an extrad from the preface. The following lines set forth this
author's three-fold purpose:

" To show them how each Fingle-fangle,
On which they doting are, their souls entangle,
As with a Web, a Trap, a Gin, or Snare.
While by their Play-things, I would them entice,
To mount their Thoughts from what are childifh Toys
To Heaven for that 's prepared for Girls and Boys.
Nor do I so confine myself to thefe
As to shun graver things, I seek to pleafe,
Thofe more compoPd with better things than Toys :
Tho thus I would be catching Girls and Boys."

In the seventy-four Meditations composing this curious med-
ley— "tho but in Homely Rhimes" — upon subjeds familiar
to any little girl or boy, none leaves the moral to the imagina-
tion. Nevertheless, it could well have been a relaxation, after
the daily drill in " A B abs" and catechism, to turn the leaves
and to spell out this:

* In the possession of the British Museum.

[ " ]

Forgotten Books of the

Upon the Frog

O" The Frog by nature is both damp and cold,
Her mouth is large, her belly much will hold.
She sits somewhat afcending, loves to be
Croaking in gardens tho' unpleafantly.

Comparifon
The hypocrite is like unto this frog;
As like as is the Puppy to the Dog.
He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide
To prate, and at true Goodnefs to deride. A

Doubtless, too, many little Puritans quite envied the child in
" The Boy and the Watchmaker," a jingle wherein the former
said, among other things :

"This Watch my Father did on me beftow
A Golden one it is, but *t will not go,
Unlefs it be at an Uncertainty;
I think there is no watch as bad as mine.
Sometimes 't is sullen, 't will not go at all.
And yet 't was never broke, nor had a fall."

The same small boys may even have enjoyed the tedious
explanation of the mechanism of the time-piece given by the
IVatchmaker^ and after skipping the "Comparison" (which
made the boy represent a convert and the watch in his pocket
illustrative of "Grace within his Heart"), they probably turned
eagerly to the next Meditation Upon the Boy and Ms Paper of
Plumbs, Weather-cocks, Hobby-horses, Horses, and Drums,
all served Bunyan in his effort "to point a moral" while adorn-
ing his tales.

In a later edition of these grotesque and quaint conceptions,
some alterations were made and a primer was included. It then

[ 12 ]

American "Nursery

appeared as " A Book for Boys and Girls ; or Temporal Things
Spiritualized; " and by the time the ninth edition was reached,
in seventeen hundred and twenty-four, the book was hardly
recognizable as "Divine Emblems; or Temporal Things
Spiritualized."

At present there is no evidence that these rhymes were
printed in the colonies until long after this ninth edition was
issued. It is possible that the success attending a book printed
in Boston shortly after the original "Country Rhimes" was
written, made the colonial printers feel that their profit would
be greater by devoting spare type and paper to the now fa-
mous "New England Primer." Moreover, it seems peculiarly
in keeping with the cast of the New England mind of the
eighteenth century that although Bunyan had attempted to
combine play-things with religious teaching for the English
children, for the little colonials the first combination was the
elementary teaching and religious exercises found in the great
"Puritan Primer." Each child was pradically, if not verbally,
told that

" This little Catechism learned by heart (for so it ought)
The Primer next commanded is for Children to be taught."

The Primer, however, was not a produd wholly of New
England. In sixteen hundred and eighty-five there had been
printed in Boston by Green, "The Protestant Tutor for
Children," a primer, a mutilated copy of which is now owned
by the American Antiquarian Society. " This," again to quote
Mr. Ford, "was probably an abridged edition of a book bearing
the same title, printed in London, with the expressed design
of bringing up children in an aversion to Popery." In Protes-

[ 13 ]

I

Forgotten Books of the

tant New England the author's purpose naturally called forth
profound approbation, and in "Green's edition of the Tutor
lay the germ of the great pidure alphabet of our fore-fathers."*
The author, Benjamin Harris, had immigrated to Boston for
personal reasons, and coming in contad with the residents,
saw the latent possibilities in "The Protestant Tutor." "To
make it more salable," writes Mr. Ford in "The New England
Primer," "the school-book charader was increased, while to
give it an even better chance of success by an appeal to local
pride it was rechristened and came forth under the now famous
title of 'The New England Primer.' "f

A careful examination of the titles contained in the first
volume of Evans's "American Bibliography" shows how ex-
adly this infant's primer represented the spirit of the times.
This chronological list of American imprints of the first one
hundred years of the colonial press is largely a record in type
of the religious adivity of the country, and is impressive as a
witness to the obedience of the press to the law of supply and
demand. With the Puritan appetite for a grim religion served
in sermons upon every subjed, ornamented and seasoned with
supposedly apt Scriptural quotations, a demand was created
for printed discourses to be read and inwardly digested at home.
This demand the printers supplied. Amid such literary condi-
tions the primer came as light food for infants' minds, and as
such was accepted by parents to impress religious ideas when
teaching the alphabet.

It is not by any means certain that the first edition of this
great primer of our ancestors contained illustrations, as en-

* Ford, T:he Nenv England Primer, p. 38. f Ibid.

[ H]

American Nursery

gravers were few in America before the eighteenth century.
Yet it seems altogether probable that they were introduced
early in the next century, as by seventeen hundred and seven-
teen Benjamin Harris, Jr., had printed in Boston "The Holy
Bible in Verse," containing cuts identical with those in "The
New England Primer" of a somewhat later date, and these
pidures could well have served as illustrations for both these
books for children's use, profit, and pleasure. At all events, the
thorough approval by parents and clergy of this small school-
book soon brought to many a household the novelty of a real
pidure-book.

Hitherto little children had been perforce content with the
few illustrations the adult books afforded. Now the printing
of this tiny volume, with its curious black pidures accompany-
ing the text of religious instrudion, catechism, and alphabets,
marked a milestone on the long lane that eventually led to
the well-drawn pidures in the modem books for children.

It is difficult at so late a day to estimate corredly the
pleasure this famous pidure alphabet brought to the various
colonial households. What the original illustrations were like
can only be inferred from those in " The Holy Bible in Verse,"
amd in later editions of the primer itself In the Bible Adam (or
is it Eve*?) stands pointing to a tree around which a serpent is
coiled. By seventeen hundred and thirty-seven the engraver
was sufficiently skilled to represent two figures, who stand
as colossal statues on either side of the tree whose fruit had
had such disastrous effeds. However, at a time when art crit-
icism had no terrors for the engraver, it could well have been
a delight to many a family of little ones to gaze upon

['5]

Forgotten Books of the

"The Lion bold
The Lamb doth hold"

and to speculate upon the exad place where the lion ended
and the lamb began. The wholly religious charader of the
book was no drawback to its popularity, for the two great
diaries of the time show how absolutely religion permeated
the atmosphere surrounding both old and young.

Cotton Mather's diary gives various glimpses of his dealing
with his own and other people's children. His son Increase,
or "Cressy," as he was afFedionately called, seems to have
been particularly unresponsive to religious coercion. Mather's
method, however, appears to have been more efficacious with
the younger members of his family, and of Elizabeth and
Samuel (seven years of age) he wrote : " My two younger
children shall before the Psalm and prayer answer a Quses-
tion in the catechism; and have their Leaves ready turned
unto the proofs of the Answer in the Bible ; which they shall
distindly read unto us, and show what they prove. This also
shall supply a fresh matter for prayer." Again he tells of
his table talk: "Tho' I will have my table talk facetious
as well as instrudive . . . yett I will have the Exercise con-
tinually intermixed. I will set before them some sentence
of the Bible, and make some useful Remarks upon it."
Other people's children he taught as occasion offered; even
when "on the Road in the Woods," he wrote on another
day, "I, being desirous to do some Good, called some little
children . . . and bestowed some Instrudion with a little Book
upon them." To children accustomed to instrudion at all
hours, the amusement found in the pages of the primer was

[ i6]

J

American Nursery

far greater than in any other book printed in the colonies for
years.

Certain titles indicate the nature of the meagre juvenile
literary fare in the beginning of the new eighteenth century.
In seventeen hundred Nicholas Boone, in his "Shop over
against the old Meeting-house" in Boston, reprinted Jane-
way's " Token for Children." To this was added by the Bos-
ton printer a " Token for the children of New England, or
some examples of children in whom the fear of God was
remarkably budding when they dyed; in several parts of New
England." Of course its author, the Reverend Mr. Mather,
found colonial "examples" as deeply religious as any that
the mother country could produce; but there is for us a
grim humor in these various incidents concerning pious and
precocious infants "of thin habit and pale countenance,"
whose pallor became that of^death at so early an age. If it
was by the repetition of such tales that the Puritan divine
strove to convert Cressy, it may well be that the son consid-
ered it better policy, since Death claimed the little saints, to
remain a sinner.

By seventeen hundred and sj:^ two juvenile books appeared
from the press of Timothy Green in Boston. The first, "A
Little Book for children wherein are set down several direc-
tions for little children: and several remarkable stories both
ancient and modern of little children, divers whereof are lately
deceased," was a reprint from an English book of the same
title, and therefore has not in this chronicle the interest of
the second book. The purpose of its publication is given in
Mather's diary:

[17]

Forgotten Books of the

[1706] 22d. Im. Friday.
About this Time sending my little son to School, Where
ye Child was Learning to Read, I did use every morning for
diverse months, to Write in a plain Hand for the Child, and
send thither by him, a Lesson in Verse^ to be not only read^
but also Gott by Heart. My proposal was to have the Child
improve in goodness, at the same time that he improved in
Reading. Upon further Thoughts I apprehended that a Col-
ledion of some of them would be serviceable to ye Good
Education of other children. So I lett ye printer take them
& print them, in some hope of some Help to thereby con-
tributed unto that great Intention of a Good Education. The
book is entituled Good Lessons for Children; or Instrudion pro-
vided for a little Son to learn at School, when learning to
Read.

Although this small book lives only by record, it is safe to
assume from the extrads of the author's diary already quoted,
that it lacked every quality of amusement, and was adapted
only to those whom he described, in a sermon preached be-
fore the Governor and Council, as "verie Sharpe and early
Ripe in their capacities." "Good Lessons" has the distinction
of being the first American book to be composed, like many
a modern publication, for a particular young child; and, with
its purpose "to improve in goodness," struck clearly the key-
note of the greater part of all writing for children during the
succeeding one hundred and seventy-five years.

The first glimpse of the amusement book proper appears
in that unique "History of Printing in America," by Isaiah

[ 18]

V

American Nursery

Thomas. This describes, among other old printers, one Thomas
Fleet, who established himself in Boston about 1713. "At
first," wrote Mr. Thomas, "he printed pamphlets for book-
sellers, small books for children and ballads" in Pudding
Lane.* "He owned several negroes, one of which . . . was
an ingenious man and cut on wooden blocks all the pidures
which decorated the ballads and small books for his master." f
! As corroborative of these statements Thomas also mentions
i Thomas Fleet, Sr.,as"the putative compiler of Mother Goose
Melodies, which he first published in 1719, bearing the title
of 'Songs for the Nursery.'"

Much discussion has arisen as to the earliest edition of
Mother Goose. Thomas's suggestion as to the origin of the first
American edition has been of late years relegated to the region
of myth. Nevertheless, there is something to be said in favor
of the existence of some book of nonsense at that time. The
Boston "News Letter" for April 12-19, 1739, contained a
criticism of Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms, in which
the reviewer wrote that in Psalm vi the translators used the
phrase, "a wretch forlorn." He added: "(1) There is nothing
of this in the original or the English Psalter. (2) 'T is a low
expression and to add a low one is the less allowable. But
(3) what I am most concerned for is, that it will be apt to
make our Children think of the line in their vulgar Play song;
much like it, ' This is the maiden all forlorn.'" We recognize at
once a reference to our nursery friend of the " House that Jack
Built;" and if this and "Tom Thumb" were sold in Boston,
why should not other ditties have been among the chap-books

* Thomas, History of Printing in America^ vol. iii, p. 145. \ Ibid.^ vol. i, p. 294.

[ 19 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

which Thomas remembered to have set up when a 'prentice
lad in the printing-house of Zechariah Fowle, who in turn
had copied some issued previously by Thomas Fleet*? In fur-
ther confirmation of Thomas's statement is a paragraph in the
preface to an edition of Mother Goose, published in Boston
in 1833, by Monroe & Francis. The editor traces the origin of
these rhymes to a London book entitled, "Rhymes for. the
Nursery or Lullabies for Children," "that," he writes, "con-
tained many of the identical pieces handed down to us." He
continues: "The first book of the kind known to be printed
in this country hears [the italics are mine'] the title, 'Songs for
the Nursery: or Mother Goose's Melodies for Children.' Something
probably intended to represent a goose, with a very long neck
and mouth wide open, covered a large part of the title-page;
at the bottom of which was : 'Printed by T. Fleet, at his print-
ing house. Pudding Lane (Boston) 1719.' Several pages were
missing, so that the whole number could not be ascertained."
The editor clearly writes as if he had either seen, or heard
accurately described, this piece of Americana^ which the bib-
liophile to-day would consider a treasure trove. Later writers
doubt whether any such book existed, for it is hardly credible
that the Puritan element which so largely composed the popu-
lation of Boston in the first quarter of the eighteenth century
would have encouraged the printing of any nonsensical jingles.
Boston, however, was not at this time the only place in
the colonies where primers and religious books were written
and printed. In Philadelphia, Andrew Bradford, famous as
the founder of the "American Weekly Mercury," had in
1714 put through his press, probably upon subscription, the

[ 20]

l/

American Nursery

"Last Words and Dyeing Expressions of Hannah Hill, aged
1 1 years and near three Months." This morbid account of
the death of a little Quakeress furnished the Philadelphia
children with a book very similar to Mather's "Token." Not
to be outdone by any precocious example in Pennsylvania,
the Reverend Mr. Mather soon found an instance of "Early
Piety in Elizabeth Butcher of Boston, being just 8 years and
11 months old," when she died in 1718. In two years two
editions of her life had been issued "to instrudand to invite
little children to the exercise of early piety."

Such mortuary effusions were so common at the time that
Benjamin Franklin's witty skit upon them is apropos in this
connedion. In 1719, at the age of sixteen, under the pseu-
donym of Mrs. Dogood, he wrote a series of letters for his
brother's paper, " The New England Courant." From the fol-
lowing extrad, taken from these letters, it is evident that these
children's "Last Words" followed the prevailing fashion:

A Receipt to make a Neruj England
Funeral Elegy.

For the title of your Elegy, Of these you may have enough
ready made at your Hands: But if you should chuse to make
it yourself you must be sure not to omit the Words Aetatis
Suae^ which will beautify it exceedingly.

For the suhje^f of your Elegy, Take one of your neighbors
who has lately departed this life ; it is no great matter at what
age the Party Dy'd, but it will be best if he went away sud-
denly, being KilVd^ Drown' d or Froze to Death.

Having chosen the Person, take all his Virtues, Excel-
lencies, &c. and if he have not enough, you may borrow some

[21 ]

Forgotten Books of the

to make up a sufficient Quantity : To these add his last Words,
dying Expressions, &c. if they are to be had : mix all these
together, and be sure you strain them well. Then season all
with a Handful or two of Melancholy Expressions, such as
Dreadful^ Dreadly^ cruel, cold. Death, unhappy. Fate, weeping
Eyes, &c. Having mixed all these Ingredients well, put them
in an empty Scull of some young Harvard; (but in case you
have ne'er a One at Hand, you may use your own^ then let
them Ferment for the Space of a Fortnight, and by that Time
they will be incorporated into a Body, which take out and
having prepared a sufficient Quantity of double Rhimes, such
as Power, Flower; ^liver. Shiver; Grieve us. Leave us ; tell you,
excel you; Expeditions, Physicians; Fatigue him. Intrigue him;
&c. you must spread all upon Paper, and if you can procure
a Scrap of Latin to put at the End, it will garnish it mightily:
then having affixed your Name at the bottom with a Maestus
Composuit, you will have an Excellent Elegy.

N.B. This Receipt will serve when a Female is the sub-
jed of your Elegy, provided you borrow a greater Quantity
of Virtues, Excellencies &c.

Of other original books for children of colonial parents in the
first quarter of that century, "A Looking-glass" did but mirror
more religious episodes concerning infants, while Mather in
his zeal had also published "An Earnest Exhortation" to New
England children, and "The A, B, C, of religion. Fitted unto the
youngest and lowest capacities." To this, taking advantage
of the use of rhymes, he appended further instrudion, includ-
ing "The Body of Divinity versified." With our knowledge

American Nursery

of the clergyman's methods with his congregation it is not
difficult to imagine that he insisted upon the purchase of these
godly aids for every household.

In attempting to reproduce the conditions of family life
in the early settlements and towns of colonial days, we turn
quite naturally to the newspapers, whose appearance in the
first quarter of the eighteenth century was gladly welcomed
by the people of their time, and whose files are now eagerly
searched for items of great or small importance. Indeed, much
information can be gathered from their advertisements, which
often filled the major part of these periodicals. Apparently
shop-keepers were keen to take advantage of such space as
was reserved for them, as sometimes a marginal note informed
the public that other advertisements must wait for the next
issue to appear.

Booksellers' announcements, however, are not too frequent
in Boston papers, and are noticeably lacking in the early is-
sues of the Philadelphia " Weekly Mercury." This dearth of
book-news accounts for the difficulty experienced by book-
lovers of that town in procuring literature — a lack noticed
at once by the wide-awake young Franklin upon his arrival
in the city, and recorded in his biography as follows:

"At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania [1728]
there was not a bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the
; southward of Boston. In New York and Phil'a. the printers
; were indeed stationers ; they sold only paper, etc., ballads, and
\ a few books. Those who lov'd reading were obliged to send
jfor their books from London."

Franklin undertook to better this condition by opening

[ 23]

J

Forgotten Books of the

a shop for the sale of foreign books. Both he and his rival in
journaHsm, Andrew Bradford, had stationer's shops, in which
were to be had besides "Good Writing Paper; Cyphering
Slates; Ink Powders, etc., Chapmens Books and Ballads."
Bradford also advertised in seventeen hundred and thirty that
all persons could be supphed with " Primers and small His-
tories of many sorts." " Small histories " were probably chap-
books, which, hawked about the country by peddlers or chap-
men, contained tales of "Fair Rosamond," "Jane Grey,"
"Tom Thumb" or "Tom Hick-a-Thrift," and though read
by old and young, were hardly more suitable for juvenile
reading than the religious elegies then so popular. These
chap-books were sold in considerable quantities on account
of their cheapness, and included religious subjeds as well as
tales of adventure.

One of the earliest examples of this chap-book literature,
thought suitable for children, was printed in the colonies by
the press of Thomas Fleet, already mentioned as a printer
of small books. This book of 1736, being intended for ready
sale, was such as every Puritan would buy for the family
library. Entitled "The Prodigal Daughter," it told in Psalm-
book metre of a "proud, vain girl, who, because her parents
would not indulge her in all her extravagances, bargained
with the devil to poisen them." The parents, however, were
warned by an angel of her intentions:

"One night her parents fleeping were in bed
Nothing but troubled dreams run in their head,
At length an angel did to them appear
Saying awake, and unto me give ear.

[ H]

American Nursery

A meflenger Pm sent by Heaven kind
To let you know your lives are both defign'd;
Your gracelefs child, whom you love fo dear,
She for your precious lives hath laid a fnare.
To poifon you the devil tempts her fo,
She hath no power from the fnare to go:
But God fuch care doth of his fervants take,
Thofe that believe on Him He '11 not forfake.

"You muft not ufe her cruel or fevere.
For though thefe things to you I do declare.
It is to fhow you what the Lord can do.
He foon can turn her heart, you '11 find it fo."

The daughter, discovered in her attempt to poison their food,
was reproached by the mother for her evil intention and
swooned. Every effort failed to "bring her spirits to revive:"

" Four days they kept her, when they did prepare
To lay her body in the duft we hear.
At her funeral a fermon then was preachM,
All other wicked children for to teach. . . -
But fuddenly they bitter groans did hear
Which much furprized all that then were there.
At length they did obferve the difmal found
Came from the body juft laid in the ground."

The Puritan pride in funeral display is naively exhibited in
the portrayal of the girl when she "in her coffin sat, and did
admire her winding sheet," before she related her experiences
"among lonesome wild deferts and briary woods, which dif-
mal were and dark." But immediately after her description
of the lake of burning misery and of the fierce grim Tempter,

I the Puritan matte r-of-fad acceptance of it all is suggested by

I the concluding lines:

[ 25]

Forgotten Books of the

" When thus her ftory fhe to them had told,
She faid, put me to bed for I am cold."

The illustrations of a later edition entered thoroughly into
the spirit of the author's intent. The contemporary opinion
of the French chara6ter is quaintly shown in the portrait of
the Devil dressed as a French gentleman, his cloven foot dis-
covering his identity. Whatever deficiencies are revealed in
these early attempts to illustrate, they invariably expressed
the artist's purpose, and in this case the Devil, after the girl's
conversion, is drawn in lines very acceptable to Puritan chil-
dren's idea of his personality.

Almanacs also were in demand, and furnished parents and
children, in many cases, with their entire library for week-day
reading. "Successive numbers hung from a string by the
chimney or ranked by years and generations on cupboard
shelves."* But when Franklin made "Poor Richard" an in-
ternational success, he, by giving short extrads from Swift,
Steele, Defoe, and Bacon, accustomed the provincial popu-
lation, old and young, to something better than the meagre
religious fare provided by the colonial press.

Such, then, were the literary conditions for children when
an advertisement inserted in the "Weekly Mercury" gave
promise of better days for the little Philadelphians.-f- Strangely
enough, this attempt to make learning seem attradive to
children did not appear in the booksellers' lists; but crowded
in between Tandums, Holland Tapes, London Steel, and

* Sears, American Literature^ p. 86.

■f Although this appears to be the first advertisement of gilt horn-books in Philadelphia papers,
an inventory of the estate of Michael Perry, a Boston bookseller, made in seventeen hundred,
includes sixteen dozen gilt horn-books.

[26]

The Devil appears as a French Gentleman

American Nursery

good Muscavado Sugar, — " Guilt horn books " were adver-
tised by Joseph Sims in 1740 as "for sale on reasonable Terms
for Cash."

Horn-books in themselves were only too common, and not
in the least delightful. Made of thin wood, whereon was
placed a printed sheet of paper containing the alphabet and
Lord's Prayer, a horn-book was hardly, properly speaking,
a book at all. But when the printed page was covered with
yellowish transparent horn, secured to the wooden back by
strips of brass, it furnished an economical and pradically in-
destrudible elementary text-book for thousands of English-
speaking children on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes
an effort was also made to guard against the inconvenient
faculty of children for losing school-books, by attaching a
cord, which, passing through a hole in the handle of the board,
was hung around the scholar's neck. But since nothing is proof
against the ingenuity of a schoolboy, many were successfully
disposed of Although printed by thousands, few in England
or in America have survived the century that has elapsed
since they were used. Occasionally, in tearing down an old
building, one of these horn-books has been found; dropped
in a convenient hole, it has remained secure from parents*
sight, until brought to light by workmen and prized as a
curiosity by grown people of the present generation. This
notice of little gilt horn-books was inserted in the "Weekly
Mercury" but once. Whether the supply was quickly ex-
hausted, or whether they did not prove a successful novelty,
can never be known; but at least they herald the approach of
the little gilt story-books which ten years later were to make

[ 27]

Forgotten Books of the

the name of John Newbery well known in English house-
holds, and hardly less familiar in the American colonies.

So far the only attractions to induce children to read have
been through the pidures in the Primer of New England, and
by the gilding of the horn-book. From further south comes
the first note of amusement in reading, as well as the first
expression of pleasure from the children themselves in regard
to a book. In 1741, in Virginia, two letters were written and
received by R. H. Lee and George Washington. These letters,
which afford the first in any way authentic account of tales
of real entertainment, are given by Mr. Lossing in "The
Home of Washington," and tell their own tale :

\Richard Henry Lee to George Washingtori\
Pa brought me two pretty books full of pidures he got
them in Alexandria they have pidures of dogs and cats and
tigers and elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin
bids me send you one of them it has a pidure of an elefant
and a little indian boy on his back like uncle jo's Sam pa
says if I learn my tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to
see you will you ask your ma to let you come to see me.

Richard henry Lee.

[G. Washington to R. H. Lee']
Dear Dickey — I thank you very much for the pretty pidure
book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the pidures
and I showed him all the pidures in it; and I read to him
how the tame Elephant took care of the Master's little boy,
and put him on his back and would not let anybody touch
his master's little son. I can read three or four pages some-

[28]

American Nursery

times without missing a word. ... I have a little piece of
poetry about the pidure book you gave me but I mustn't
tell you who wrote the poetry.

G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L.
And likes his book full well,
Henceforth will count him his friend
And hopes many happy days he may spend.

Your good friend

George Washington.

In a note Mr. Lossing states that he had copies of these
two letters, sent him by a Mr. Lee, who wrote : " The letter
of Richard Henry Lee was written by himself, and uncor-
reded sent by him to his boy friend George Washington.
The poetical effusion was, I have heard, written by a Mr.
Howard, a gentleman who used to visit at the house of
Mr. Washington."

It would be gratifying to know the titles of these two books,
so evidently English chap-book tales. It is probable that they
were imported by a shop-keeper in Alexandria, as in sev-
enteen hundred and forty-one there was only one press in
Virginia, owned by William Sharps, who had moved from
Annapolis in seventeen hundred and thirty-six. Luxuries
were so much more common among the Virginia planters,
and life was so much more roseate in hue than was the case
in the northern colonies, that it seems most natural that two
southern boys should have left the earliest account of any
real story-books. Though unfortunately nameless, they at least
form an interesting coincidence. Bought in seventeen hun-
dred and forty-one, they follow just one hundred years later

[ ^9 ]

Forgotten Books

than the meeting of the General Court, which was responsible
for the preparation of Cotton's "Milk for Babes," and precede
by a century the date when an American story-book litera-
ture was recognized as very different from that written for
English children.

[30]

CHAPTER II

1747-1767

He who learns his letters fair,
Shall have a coach and take the air.

Royal Primer i Newbery, 1762

Our king the good
No man of blood.

The Neiv England Primer ^ 1762

\J

CHAPTER II

1747-1767
The Play -Book in England

THE vast horde of story-books so constantly poured
into modern nurseries makes it difficult to realize that
\ the library of the early colonial child consisted of such books
"• as have been already described. The juvenile books to-day
are multiform. The quantities displayed upon shop-counters
or ranged upon play-room shelves include a variety of sub-
jeds bewildering to all but those whose business necessitates
a knowledge of this kind of literature. For the little child
there is no lack of gayly colored pidures and short tales in
large print; for the older boys and girls there lies a generous
choice, ranging from Bunny stories to Jungle Books, or they

\ "May see how all things are,

Seas and cities near and far.
And the flying fairies' looks
In the pidure story-books."

The contrast is indeed extreme between that scanty fare of
dull sermons and "The New England Primer" given to the
I little people of the early eighteenth century, and this su-
perabundance prepared with lavish care for the nation of
American children.

The beginning of this complex juvenile literature is, there-

. fore, to be regarded as a comparatively modern invention

I of about seventeen hundred and forty-five. From that date

can be traced the slow growth of a literature written with an

avowed intention of furnishing amusement as well as instruc-

[33 ]

Forgotten Books of the

tion; and in the toy-books published one hundred and fifty
years ago are found the prototypes of the present modes of
bringing fun and knowledge to the American fireside.

The question at once arises as to the reason why this lit-
erature came into existence ; why was it that children after
seventeen hundred and fifty should have been favored in a
way unknown to their parents?

To even the casual reader of English literature the answer
is plain, if this subjed of toy-books be regarded as of near
kin to the larger body of writing. It has been somewhat the
custom to consider children's literature as a thing wholly
apart from that of adults, probably because the majority of
the authors of these little tales have so generally lacked the
qualities indispensable for any true literary work. In reality the
connedion between the two is somewhat like that of parent
and child; the smaller body, though lacking in power, has
closely imitated the larger mass of writing in form and kind,
and has reileded, sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, the
good or bad fashions that have shared the successive periods
of literary history, like a child who unconsciously reproduces
a parent's foibles or excellences.

It is to England, then, that we must look to find the con-
ditions out of which grew the necessity for this modern in-
vention— the story-book.

The love of stories has been the splendid birthright of
every child in all ages and in all lands. "Stories," wrote
Thackeray, — "stories exist everywhere; there is no calcu-
lating the distance through which the stories have come to
us, the number of languages through which they have been

[34]

\J

American Nursery

filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told.
Many of them have been narrated almost in their present
shape for thousands of years to the little copper-coloured
Sanscrit children, listening to their mothers under the palm-
trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna — their Brahmin
mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her
nose. The very same tale has been heard by the Northern
Vikings as they lay on their shields on deck; and the Arabs
couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when their
flocks were gathered in, and their mares were picketed by
the tents." This piduresque description leads exadly to the
point to be emphasized: that children shared in the simple
tales of their people as long as those tales retained their fresh-
ness and simplicity; but when, as in England in the eight-
eenth century, the literature lost these qualities and became
artificial, critical, and even skeptical, it lost its charm for the
little ones and they no longer cared to listen to it.

Fashion and taste were then alike absorbed in the works
of Dry den. Pope, Addison, Steele, and Swift, and the novels
from the pens of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett had be-
gun to claim and to hold the attention of the English read-
ing public. The children, however, could neither comprehend
nor enjoy the witty criticism and subtle treatment of the top-
ics discussed by the older men, although, as will be seen in
another chapter, the novels became, in both the original and
in the abridged forms, the delight of many a "young master
and miss." Meanwhile, in the American colonies the people
who could afford to buy books inherited their taste for litera-
ture as well as for tea from the Puritans and fashionables in

[35]

Forgotten Books of the

the mother country; although it is a fad familiar to all, that
the works of the comparatively few native authors lagged,
in spirit and in style, far behind the writings of Englishmen
of the time.

The reading of one who was a boy in the older era of the
urbane Addison and the witty Pope, and a man in the newer
period of the novelists, is well described in Benjamin Frank-
lin's autobiography. "All the little money," wrote that book-
lover, " that came into my hands was laid out in books. Pleased
with the Pilgrim's Progress, my colledion was of John Bun-
I yan's works in separate volumes. I afterwards sold them to
I buy R. Burton's Historical CoUedions; they were Chapmen's
i books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all."

Burton's "Historical CoUedions" contained history, trav-
els, adventures, fidion, natural history, and biography. So
great was the favor in which they were held in the eight-
eenth century that the compiler, Nathaniel Crouch, almost
lost his identity in his pseudonym, and like the late Mr. Cle-
mens, was better known by his nom-de-plume than by his
family name. According to Dunton, he "melted down the
best of the English histories into twelve-penny books, which
are filled with wonders, rarities and curiosities." Although
charaderized by Dr. Johnson as " very proper to allure back-
ward readers," the contents of many of the various books
afforded the knowledge and entertainment eagerly grasped
by Franklin and other future makers of the American na-
tion. The scarcity of historical works concerning the colonies
made Burton's account of the "English Empire in America"
at once a mine of interest to wide-awake boys of the day.

[36]

American Nursery

Number VIII, entitled "Winter Evenings' Entertainment,"
was long a source of amusement with its stories and riddles,
and its title was handed down to other books of a similar
nature. To children, however, the best-known volume of the
series was Burton's illustrated versification of Bible stories
called "The Youth's Divine Pastime." But the subjeds chosen
by Burton were such as belonged to a very plain-spoken age;
and as the versifier was no euphuist in his relation of fads,
the result was a remarkable "Pastime for Youth." The lit-
erature read by English children was, of course, the same;
the little ones of both countries ate of the same tree of know-
ledge of fads, often either silly or revolting.

To deliver the younger and future generations from such
unpalatable and indigestible mental food, there was soon to
appear in London a man, John Newbery by name, who, al-
ready a printer, publisher, and vendor of patent medicines,
seized the opportunity to issue stories written especially for
the amusement of little children.

While Newbery was making his plans to provide pleasure
for young folks in England, in the colonies the idea of a
child's need of recreation through books was slowly gaining
ground. It is well to note the manner in which the little colo-
nists were prepared to receive Newbery's books as recreative
features crept gradually into the very few publications of
which there is record.

In seventeen hundred and forty-five native talent was still en-
tirely confined to writing for little people lugubrious sermons
or discourses delivered on Sunday and " Catechize days," and
afterwards printed for larger circulation. The reprints from

[37]

Forgotten Books of the

English publications were such exotics as, "A Poesie out of
Mr. Dod's Garden," an alluring title, which did not in the
least deceive the small colonials as to the religious nature of
its contents.

In New York the Dutch element, until the advent of Gar-
rat Noel, paid so little attention to the subjed of juvenile liter-
ature that the popularity of Watts's "Divine Songs" (issued
by an Englishman) is well attested by the fad that at present
it is one of the very few child's books of any kind recorded
as printed in that city before 1760. But in Boston, old Thomas
Fleet, in 1741, saw the value of the element of some enter-
tainment in connection with reading, and, when he published
"The Parents' Gift, containing a choice colledion of God's
judgments and Mercies," lives of the Evangelists, and other
religious matter, he added a "variety of pleasant Pidures
proper for the Entertainment of Children." This is, perhaps,
the first printed acknowledgment in America that pidures
were commendable to parents because entertaining to their
offspring. Such an idea put into words upon paper and ad-
vertised in so well-read a sheet as the "Boston Evening Post,"
must surely have impressed fathers and mothers really soli-
citous for the family welfare and anxious to provide harm-
less pleasure. This pidorial element was further encouraged
by Franklin, when, in 1747, he reprinted, probably for the
first time in this country, "Dil worth's New Guide to the Eng-
lish Tongue." In this school-book, after the alphabets and
spelling lessons, a special feature was introduced, that is, il-
lustrated " Seled Fables." The cuts at the top of each fable
possess an added interest from the supposition that they were

[ 38 ]

American Nursery

engraved by the printer himself; and the constant use of the
"Guide " by colonial school-masters and mistresses made their
pupils unconsciously quite ready for more illustrated and
fewer homiletic volumes.

Indeed, before the middle of the century pidures had be-
come an accepted feature of the few juvenile books, and "The
History of the Holy Jesus" versified for little ones was is-
sued by at least two old Boston printers in 1 747 and 1 748
with more than a dozen cuts. Among the rare extant copies
of this small chap-book is one that, although torn and dis-
figured by tiny fingers and the century and a half since it
pleased its first owner, bears the personal touch of this inscrip-
tion : "Ebenezer . . . Bought June ... 1 749 . . . price 0 = 2 = d."
Was the price marked upon its page as a reminder that two
shillings was a large price to pay for a boy's book ? Perhaps for
this reason it received the careful handling that has enabled
us to examine it, when so many of its contemporaries and
successors have vanished.

The versified story, notwithstanding its quaintness of dic-
tion, begins with a dignified diredness:

"The glorious blessed Time had come,
The Father had decreed,
Jesus of Mary there was born,
And in a Manger laid."

At the end are two Hymns^ entitled "Delight in the Lord
Jesus," and "Absence fi-om Christ intolerable." The final
'[ stanza is typical of one Puritan dodrine :

"The Devil throws his fiery Darts,
And wicked Ones do ad their parts,

[39]

Forgotten Books of the

To ruin me when Christ is gone.
And leaves me all alone."

The woodcuts are not the least interesting feature of this old-
time duodecimo, from the pidure showing the mother reading
to her children to the illustration of the quaking of the earth
on the day of the crucifixion. Crude and badly drawn as they
now seem, they were surely sufficient to attrad the child of
their generation.

About the same time old Zechariah Fowle, who appren-
ticed Isaiah Thomas, and both printed and vended chap-
books in Back Street, Boston, advertised among his list of
books "Lately Publiih'd " this same small book, together with
"A Token for Youth," the "Life and Death of Elizabeth
Butcher," "A Prefervative from the Sins and Follies of Child-
hood and Youth," "The Prodigal Daughter," "The Happy
Child," and "The New Gift for Children with Cuts." Of these
"The New Gift" was certainly a real story-book, as one of
a later edition still extant readily proves.
^ Thus the children in both countries were prepared to en-
joy Newbery's miniature story-books, although for somewhat
different reasons: in England the literature had reached a
point too artificial to be interesting to little ones; in America
the produd of the press and the charader of the majority of
the juvenile importations, the reprints, or home-made chap-
books, has been shown to be such as would hardly attrad those
who were to be the future arbiters of the colonies' destiny.

The reasons for the coming to light of this new form of
infant literature have been dwelt upon in order to show the
necessity for some change in the kind of reading-matter to be

[40]

American Nursery

put in the hands of the younger members of the family. The
natural order of consideration is next to point out the phase
it assumed upon its appearance in England, — a phase largely
due to the influence of one man, — and once there, the modi-
fications efFeded by the fashions in adult fidion.

Although there was already much interest in the education'
and welfare of children still in the nursery, the chara6ter of
the first play-books was probably due to the esteem in which
the opinions of the philosopher, John Locke, were held. He it
was who gradually moved the vane of public opinion around
to serious consideration of recreation as a fa6tor in the well-
being of these nursery inmates. Although it took time for
Locke's ideas upon the subjed to sink into the public mind,
it is impossible to compare one of the first attempts to pro-
duce a play-book, "The Child's New Play-thing," with the
advice written to his friend, Edward Clarke, without feel-
ing that the progress from the religious books to primers and
readers (such as " Dilworth's Guide"), and then onward to
story-books, was largely the result of the publication of his
letters under the title of " Thoughts on Education."

In these letters Locke took an extraordinary course: he
first made a quaint plea for the general welfare of Mr. Clarke's
little son. "I imagine," he wrote, "the minds of children are
as easily turned this or that way as Water itself, and though
this be the principal Part, and our main Care should be about
the inside, yet the Clay Cottage is not to be negleded. I shall
therefore begin with the case, and consider first the Health
of the body." Under Health he discussed clothing, including
thin shoes, "that they may leak and let in Water." A pause

[41 ]

Forgotten Books of the

was then made to show the benefits of wet feet as against
the apparent disadvantages of filthy stockings and muddy-
boots; for mothers even in that time were inclined to consider
their floors and steps. Bathing next received attention. Bath-
ing every day in cold water, Locke regarded as exceedingly
desirable; no exceptions were to be made, even in the case
of a "puleing and tender" child. The beneficial effeds of
air, sunlight, the establishment of good condud, diet, sleep,
and "physick" were all discussed by the dodor and philoso-
pher, before the development of the mind was touched upon.
"Education," he wrote, "concerns itself with the forming of
Children's Minds, giving them that seasoning early, which
shall influence their Lives later." This seasoning referred to
the training of children in matters pertaining to their general
government and to the reverence of parents. For the Puritan
population it was undoubtedly a shock to find Locke inter-
esting himself in, and moreover advocating, dancing as a part
of a child's education; and worst of all, that he should mention
it before their hobby. Learning. In this connexion it is worth
while to make mention of a favorite primer, which, pubhshed
about the middle of the eighteenth century, was entitled " The
Hobby Horse." Locke was quite aware that his method would
be criticised, and therefore took the bull by the horns in the
following manner. He admitted that to put the subjed of
learning last was a cause for wonder, "especially if I tell you
I think it the least part. This may seem strange in the mouth
of a bookish man, and this making usually the chief, if not
only bustle and stir about children; this being almost that
alone, which is thought on, when People talk about Education,

[42]

American Nursery

make it the greater Paradox." An unusual piece of advice it
most surely was to parents to whose children came the task
of learning to read as soon as they were given spoon-food.

Even more revolutionary to the custom of an eighteenth
century mother was the admonition that reading "be never
made a Task." Locke, however, was not the man to urge a
cure for a bad habit without prescribing a remedy, so he went
on to say that it was always his " Fancy that Learning be made
a Play and Recreation to Children" — a "Fancy" at present
much in vogue. To accomplish this desirable result, " Dice and
Play-things with the Letters on them" were recommended
to teach children the alphabet; "and," he added, "twenty
other ways may be found ... to make this kind of Learning
a Sport to them." Letter-blocks were in this way made popu-
lar, and formed the approved and advanced method until in
these latter days pedagogy has swept aside the letter-blocks
and syllabariums and carried the sport to word-pidures.

This theory had a pradical result in the introdudion to
many households of "The Child's New Play-thing." This
book, already mentioned, was printed in England in seven-
teen hundred and forty-three, and dedicated to Prince George.
In seventeen hundred and forty-four we find through the " Bos-
ton Evening Post" of January 23 that the third edition was
sold by Joseph Edwards, in Cornhill, and it was probably from
this edition that the first American edition was printed in seven-
teen hundred and fifiiy. From the following description of this
American reprint (one of which is happily in the Lenox Col-
ledion), it will be seen that the "Play-thing" was an attempt
to follow Locke's advice, as well as a conneding link between

[43 ]

si

Forgotten Books of the

the primer of the past and the story-book of the near future.
^c"/ The title, which the illustration shows, reads, "The Child's
New Play-thing being a spelling-book intended to make
Learning to read a diversion instead of a task. Consisting of
Scripture-histories, fables, stories, moral and religious pre-
cepts, proverbs, songs, riddles, dialogues, &c. The whole
adapted to the capacities of children, and divided into lessons
of one, two, three and four syllables. The fourth edition. To
which is added three dialogues; i. Shewing how a little boy
shall make every body love him. 2. How a little boy shall
grow wiser than the rest of his school-fellows. 3. How a little
boy shall become a great man. Designed for the use of schools,
or for children before they go to school." a

Coverless and faded, hard usage is written in unmistakable
charade rs upon this play-thing of a whole family. Upon a fly-
leaf are the autographs of "Ebenezer Ware and Sarah Ware,
Their Book," and upon another page these two names with
the addition of the signatures of " Ichabod Ware and Cyrus
Ware 1787." One parent may have used it when it was fresh
from the press of Draper & Edwards in Boston; then, through
enforced economy, handed it down to the next generation,
who doubtless scorned the dedication so eminently proper
in seventeen hundred and fifty, so thoroughly out of place
thirty-seven years later. There it stands in large black type :

To his ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE GEORGE This Litde

Play-thing is most humbly dedicated

By

His ROYAL HIGHNESS'S

Devoted Servant

[44]

THE

Child's new Play-Thmg :

BEING A

SPELLING-BOOK

IKTENEKD

To make the Learning to "Read
a Diverfion inflc^id of a Tajk,

Confifi.ing of

Scripture-Hiftorics, Fables, Ston-s

Maral and ReligioasPrecepts, Proverbs, Soags,
Riddles, DiaJogues, Sec.

The Whole adapted to the Capacities of ChiU/c-i.
antl Divided into LeiTons oi ond, tv/o, thrct aid
four Syllables.

The FOURTH FDITION.

To which is added Three Dialogues •,

I. Shewing how a little Boy fliall make
every body love him. 2. How a
little Boy ihall grow wifer chaa the
reft of his School-fellows. 3. How
^ littk Boy (hall become ?. grcatMan*

Defigntdfor theUSE of SCHOOLS, cr
for Children hsfore th ey go to School

eOS'TON : Priafcd by J. Prap6R»
/, '.^LWAKXis Lq C ornhill

^itle-page from ^'T^he Child's new Flay-'^hing'"

/

American Nursery

Of especial interest are the alphabets in "Roman, Italian, and
English Names " on the third page, while page four contains the
dear old alphabet in rhyme, fortunately not altogether for-
gotten in this prosaic age. We recognize it as soon as we see it.

"A Apple-Pye
B bit it
C cut it,"

and involuntarily add, D divided it. After the spelling lessons
came fables, proverbs, and the splendid "Stories proper to
raise the Attention and excite the Curiosity of Children" of
any age; namely, "St. George and the Dragon," " Fortunatus,"
" Guy of Warwick," " Brother and Sister," " Reynard the Fox,"
"The Wolf and the Kid." "The Good Dr. Watts," writes
Mrs. Field, "is supposed to have had a hand in the composi-
tion of this toy book especially in the stories, one of which is
quite in the style of the old hymn writer." Here it is :

"Once on a time two dogs went out to walk. Tray was a good
dog, and would not hurt the least thing in the world, but Snap
was cross, and would snarl and bite at all that came in his way.
At last they came to a town. All the dogs came round them.
Tray hurt none of them, but Snap would grin at one, snarl at
the next, and bite a third, till at last they fell on him and tore
him limb from limb, and as poor Tray was with him, he met
with his death at the same time.

Moral
"By this fable you see how dangerous it is to be in com-
pany with bad boys. Tray was a quiet harmless dog, and hurt
nobody, but, &c."*

* Field, The Child and his Book, p. 223.

[45]

Forgotten Booh of the

Thus we find that Locke sowed the seed, Watts watered the
soil in which the seed fell, and that Newbery, after mixing in
ideas from his very fertile brain, soon reaped a golden harvest
from the crop of readers, pidure-books, and little histories
which he, with the aid of certain well-known authors, pro-
duced.
y According to his biographer, Mr. Charles Welsh, John
Newbery was born in a quaint parish of England in seven-
teen hundred and thirteen. Although his father was only a
small farmer, Newbury inherited his bookish tastes from an
ancestor, Ralph or Rafe Newbery, who had been a great pub-
lisher of the sixteenth century. Showing no inclination toward
the life of a farmer, the boy, at sixteen, had already entered
the shop of a merchant in Reading. The name of this merchant
is not known, but inference points to Mr. Carnan, printer,
proprietor, and editor of one of the earliest provincial news-
papers. In seventeen hundred and thirty-seven, at the death
of Carnan, John Newbery, then about twenty-four years of
age, found himself one of the proprietor's heirs and an exec-
utor of the estate. Carnan left a widow, to whom, to quote her
son, Ne wbery's " love of books and acquirements as a printer
rendered him very acceptable." The amiable and well-to-do
widow and Newbery were soon married, and their youngest
son, Francis Newbery, eventually succeeded his father in the
business of publishing.

Shortly after Newbery's marriage his ambition and enter-
prise resulted in the establishment of his family in London,
where, in seventeen hundred and forty-four, he opened a ware-
house at ^he Bible and Crown^ near Devereux Court, without

[46 ]

A LITTLE PRETTY

P O C K E T-B O O K,

Intended for the
Instruction and Amusement

O F

Little Master TOMMY,

AND

Pretty Miss POLLY.

With Two LETTERS rVom
JACK the GIANT-KILLER

AS ALSO

A B A L L and PINCUSHION;

The Ufeofwhich will infallibly makeToMMY
a good Boy, and Poll y a good Girl.

To which is added,

A LITTLE SONG-BOOK,

BEING

A New Attempt to teach Children
the Ufe of the EngliCi Alphabet, by Way
of Diverfion.

The first UVP.CESTER EDITIcTtT

PRINTED at Worcester, M^fy^'.v/^x'.';.
By ISAIAH THOMAS,

And sor.D,Wholefale rind Retail, at his Book*
Store. Morci-xxxvir,

^itle-page from ''J Little Pretty Focket-Book'

American Nursery

Temple Bar. Meanwhile he had associated himself with Ben-
jamin Collins, a printer in Salisbury. Collins both planned
and printed some of Newbery's toy volumes, and his name
likewise was well-known to shop-keepers in the colonies.
Newbery soon found that his business warranted another
move nearer to the centre of trade. He therefore combined
two establishments into one at the now celebrated corner of
St. Paul's Churchyard, and at the same time decided to con-
fine his attention exclusively to book publishing and medicine
vending.

Before his departure from Devereux Court, Newbery had
published at least one book for juvenile readers. The title
reads : " Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the instruc-
tion and Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty
Miss Polly, with an agreeable Letter to read from Jack the
Giant Killer, as also a Ball and Pincushion, the use of which
will infallibly make Tommy a good Boy, and Polly a good
Girl. To the whole is prefixed a letter on education humbly
addressed to all Parents, Guardians, Governesses, &c., wherein
rules are laid down for making their children strong, healthy,
virtuous, wise and happy." To this extraordinarily long title
were added couplets fi-om Dryden and Pope, probably be-
cause extrads fi-om these poets were usually placed upon the
title-page of books for grown people ; possibly also in order
to give a finish to miniature volumes that would be like the
larger publications. A wholly simple method of writing title-
pages never came into even Newbery's original mind; he did
for the juvenile customer exadly what he was accustomed to
do for his father and mother. And yet the habit of spreading

[47 ]

J

Forgotten Books of the

out over the page the entire contents of the book was not
without value : it gave the purchaser no excuse for not know-
ing what was to be found within its covers ; and in the days
when books were a luxury and literary reviews non-existent,
the country trade was enabled to make a better choice.

The manner in which the " Little Pretty Pocket-Book " is
written is so charade ristic of those who were the first to attempt
to write for the younger generation in an amusing way, that it
is worth while to examine briefly the topics treated. An Ameri?.
can reprint of a later date, now in the Lenox Colledion, will
serve to show the method chosen to combine instrudion with
amusement. The book itself is miniature in size, about two
by four inches, with embossed gilt paper covers — Newbery's
own specialty as a binding. The sixty-five little illustrations at
the top of its pages were numerous enough to afford pleasure
to any eighteenth century child, although they were crude in
execution and especially lacked true perspedive. The first
chapter after the "Address to Parents" and to the other people
mentioned on the title-page gives letters to Master Tommy
and Miss Polly. First, Tommy is congratulated upon the good
charader that his Nurse has given him, and instruded as to the
use of the " Pocket-Book," " which will teach you to play at all
those innocent games that good Boys and Girls divert them-
selves with." The boy reader is next advised to mark his good
and bad adions with pins upon a red and black ball. Little
Polly is then given similar congratulations and instrudions,
except that in her case a pincushion is to be substituted for
a ball. Then follow thirty pages devoted to "alphabetically
digested" games, from "The great A Flay" and "The Little

[48]

f9 RULES fir BEHAVIOUR.

BEHAVIOUR wA^/Z^/ HOME.

1 TW /TAKE a Bow always when you
XVX come Home, and be inftantly un-
covered.

a Be never covered at Home, efpecially
before thy Parents or Strangers.

3 Never fet in the Prefence of thy Pa.
rents without bidding, though no Stran-
ger be preient.

J f age from "^ Little Pretty Focket-Book

American Nursery

a 'Play'' to " The great and little Rs" when plays, or the author's
imagination, give out and rhymes begin the alphabet anew.
Modern pidure alphabets have not improved much upon
this jingle :

"Great A, Band C

And tumble down D,

The Cat 's a blind bufF,

And she cannot see."

Next in order are four fables with morals (written in the guise
of letters), for in Newbery's books and in those of a much
later period, we feel, as Mr. Welsh writes, a "strong deter-
mination on the part of the authors to place the moral plainly
in sight and to point steadily to it." Pidures also take a lead-
ing part in this effort to inculcate good behaviour; thus Good
Children are portrayed in cuts, which accompany the direc-
tions for attaining perfection. Proverbs, having been hitherto
introduced into school-books, appear again quite naturally in
this source of diversion, which closes — at least in the Ameri-
can edition — with sixty-three "Rules for Behaviour." These
rules include those suitable for various occasions, such as "At
the Meeting-House," " Home," "The Table," " In Company,"
and "When abroad with other Children." To-day, when many
such rules are as obsolete as the tiny pages themselves, this
chapter affords many glimpses of the customs and etiquette
of the old-fashioned child's life. Such a diredion as " Be not
hasty to run out of Meeting-House when Worship is ended,
as if thou weary of being there" (probably an American adap-
tation of the English original), recalls the well-filled colonial
meeting-house, where weary children sat for hours on high

[49]

/

Forgotten Books of the

seats, with dangling legs, or screwed their small bodies in
vain efforts to touch the floor. Again we can see the anxious
mothers, when, after the long sermon was brought to a close,
they put restraining hands upon the little ones, lest they, in
haste to be gone, should forget this admonition. The formalism
of the time is suggested in this request, "Make a Bow always
when come Home, and be instantly uncovered," for the cere-
mony of polite manners in these bustling days has so much
relaxed that the modern boy does all that is required if he
remembers to be "instantly uncovered when come Home."
Among the numerous other requirements only one more may
be cited — a rule which reveals the table manners of polite
society in its requisite for genteel condud: "Throw not any-
thing under the Table. Pick not thy teeth at the Table, unless
holding thy Napkin before thy mouth with thine other Hand."
With such an array of intelledual and moral contents, the
little " Pocket-Book " may appear to-day to be almost any-
thing except an amusement book. Yet this was the phase that
the English play-book first assumed, and it must not be for-
gotten that English prose fidion was only then coming into
existence, except such germs as are found in the charader
sketches in the "Spedator" and in the cleverly told incidents
by Defoe.

In 1744, when Newbery published this duodecimo. Dr.
Samuel Johnson was the presiding genius of English let-
ters; four years earlier, fidion had come prominently into the
foreground with the publication of "Pamela" by Samuel
Richardson; and between seventeen hundred and forty and
seventeen hundred and fifty-two, Richardson's " Clarissa

[ 50 ]

1/
American Nursery

Harlowe," Smollett's "Roderick Random" and "Peregrine
Pickle," and Fielding's "Tom Jones" were published. This
fad may seem irrelevant to the present subjed; neverthe-
i less, the idea of a veritable story-book, that is a book relat-
I ing a tale, does not seem to have entered Newbery's mind
I until after these novels had met with a deserved and popu-
\ lar success.

The result of Newbery's first efforts to follow Locke's
advice was so satisfadory that his wares were sought most
eagerly. " Very soon," said his son, Francis Newbery, " he was
in the full employment of his talents in writing and pub-
lishing books of amusement and instrudion for Children. The
call for them was immense, an edition of many thousands be-
ing sometimes exhausted during the Christmas holidays. His
friend. Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, like other grave charade rs,
could now and then be jocose, had used to say of him, 'New-
bery is an extraordinary man, for I know not whether he has
read or written most Books.'"*

The bookseller was no less clever in his use of other
people's wits. No one knows how many of the tiny gilt
bindings covered stories told by impecunious writers, to
whom the proceeds in times of starvation were bread if not
butter. Newbery, though called by Goldsmith " the philan-
thropic publisher of St. Paul's Churchyard," knew very well
the worth to his own pocket of these authors' skill in story-
writing. Between the years seventeen hundred and fifty-seven
and seventeen hundred and sixty-seven, the English pub-
lisher was at the height of his prosperity ; his name became

* Welsh, Bookseller of the Last Century, pp. 22, 23.

[SI]

4

Forgotten Books of the

a household word in England, and was hardly less well known
to the little colonials of America.

Newbery's literary associations, too, were both numer-
ous and important. Before Oliver Goldsmith began to write
for children, he is thought to have contributed articles for
Newbery's "Literary Magazine" about seventeen hundred
and fifty-eight, while Johnson's celebrated " Idler " was first
printed in a weekly journal started by the publisher about
the same time. For the " British Magazine " Ne wbery en-
gaged Smollett as editor. In this periodical appeared Gold-
smith's "History of Miss Stanton." When later this was pub-
lished as "The Vicar of Wakefield," it contained a charac-
terization of the bookseller as a good-natured man with red,
pimpled face, "who was no sooner alighted than he was in
haste to be gone, for he was ever on business of the utmost
importance, and he was at that time adually compiling ma-
terials for the history of Mr. Thomas Trip." * With such an
acquaintance it is probable that Newbery often turned to
Goldsmith, Giles Jones, and Tobias Smollett for assistance
in writing or abridging the various children's tales; even the
pompous Dr. Johnson is said to have had a hand in their
produdion — since he expressed a wish to do so. Newbery
himself, however, assumed the responsibility as well as the
credit of so many little "Histories," that it is exceedingly dif-
ficult to fix upon the real authors of some of the best-known
volumes in the publisher's juvenile library.

The histories of "Goody Two-Shoes" and "Tommy Trip"
(once such nursery favorites, and now almost, if not quite,

* Foster, Life of Goldsmith^ vol. i, p. 244.

[52]

^J

American Nursery

forgotten) have been attributed to various men ; but accord-
ing to Mr. Pearson in "Banbury Chap-Books," Goldsmith
confessed to writing both. Certainly, his sly wit and quizzi-
cal vein of humor seem to pervade " Goody Two-Shoes " —
often ascribed to Giles Jones — and the notes affixed to the
rhymes of Mother Goose before she became Americanized.
Again his skill is seen in the adaptation of "Wonders of Na-
ture and Art" for juvenile admirers; and for "Fables in Verse"
he is generally considered responsible. As all these tales were
printed in the colonies or in the young Republic, their pe-
culiarities and particularities may be better described when
dealing with the issues of the American press.

John Newbery, the most illustrious of publishers in the
eyes of the old-fashioned child, died in 1767, at the com-
paratively early age of fifty-four. Yet before his death he had
proved his talent for producing at least fifty original little
books, to be worth considerably more than the Biblical ten
talents.

No sketch of Newbery's life should fail to mention an-
other large fador in his successful experiment — the inser-
tion in the "London Chronicle" and other newspapers of
striking and novel advertisements of his gilt volumes, which
were to be had for "six-pence the price of binding." An in-
stance of his skill appeared in the "London Chronicle" for
December 19, 1764- January 1, 1765:

"The Philosophers, Politicians, Necromancers, and the
learned in every faculty are desired to observe that on the
1st of January, being New Year's Day (oh, that we may
all lead new lives I) Mr. Newbery intends to publish the

[ 53 ]

Forgotten Books of the

following important volumes, bound and gilt, and hereby
invites all his little friends who are good to call for them at
the Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Churchyard, but those who
are naue^hty to have none."*

Christopher Smart, his(brother)in-law, who was an adept
in the art of puffing, possibly wrote many of the advertise-
ments of new books — notices so cleverly phrased that they
could not fail to attrad the attention of many a country
shop-keeper. In this way thousands were sold to the coun-
try distrids; and book-dealers in the American common-
wealths, reading the English papers and alert to improve
their trade, imported them in considerable quantities.

After Newbery's death, his son, Francis, and Carnan, his
stepson, carried on the business until seventeen hundred and
eighty-eight; from that year until eighteen hundred and two
Edward Newbery (a nephew of the senior Newbery), who
in seventeen hundred and sixty-seven had set up a rival
establishment, continued to publish new editions of the
same little works. Yet the credit of this experiment of
printing juvenile stories belongs entirely to the older pub-
lisher. Through them he made a strong protest against the
reading by children of the lax chap-book literature, so excel-
lently described by Mr. John Ashton in "Chap-Books of
the Eighteenth Century;" and although his stories occasion-
ally alluded to disagreeable subjeds or situations, these were
unfortunately familiar to his small patrons.

The gay little covers of gilt or parti-colored paper in
which this English publisher dressed his books expressed

* Welsh, Bookseller of the Last Century, p. 109.

[54]

1/

American Nursery

an evident purpose to afford pleasure, which was increased
by the many illustrations that adorned the pages and added
interest to the contents.

To the modern child, these books give no pleasure ; but
to those who love the history of children of the past, they
are interesting for two reasons. In them is portrayed some-
thing of the life of eighteenth century children; and by them
the century's difference in point of view as to the constitu-
ents of a story-book can be gauged. Moreover, all Newbery's
publications are to be credited with a careful preparation
that later stories sadly lacked. They were always written
with a certain art; if the language was pompous, we remem-
ber Dr. Johnson; if the style was formal, its composition
was corred; if the tales lacked ease in telling, it was only
the starched etiquette of the day reduced to a printed page;
and if they preached, they at least were seldom vulgar.

The preaching, moreover, was of different charader from

that of former times. Hitherto, the fear of the Lord had

wholly occupied the author's attention when he composed

a book "proper for a child as soon as he can read;'^ now,

material welfare was dwelt upon, and a good boy's reward

came to him when he was chosen the Lord Mayor of London.

f Good girls were not forgotten, and were assured that, like

Goody Two-Shoes, they should attain a state of prosperity

wherein

"Their Fortune and their Fame would fix
And gallop in their Coach and Six."

Goody Two-Shoes, with her particular method of instilling
the alphabet, and such books as " King Pippin" (a prodigy of

[ 55 ]

J

Forgotten Books

learning) may be considered as tiny commentaries upon
the years when Johnson reigned supreme in the realm of
learning. These and many others emphasized not the efFeds
of piety, — Cotton Mather's forte, — but the benefits of learn-
ing; and hence the good boy was also one who at the age
of five spelt "apple-pye" corredly and therefore eventually
became a great man.

At the time of Newbery's death it was more than evident
that his experiment had succeeded, and children's stories
were a printed fad.

[56]

CHAPTER III

1750-177^

I

Kings should be good
Not men of blood.

The Neiv England Primer, 1791

If Faith itself has different dresses worn
What wonder modes in wit should take their turn.

Pope : Essay on Man

I

CHAPTER III

1750-177^

Newbery's Books in America

N the middle of the eighteenth century Thursdays were
red-letter days for the residents of the Quaker town of
Philadelphia. On that day Thomas Bradford sent forth from
the "Sign of the Bible" in Second Street the weekly number
of the " Pennsylvania Journal," and upon the same day his
rival journalists, Franklin and Hall, issued the "Pennsyl-
vania Gazette."

On Thursday, the fifteenth of November, seventeen hun-
dred and fifty, Old Style, the good people of the town took
up their newspapers with doubtless a feeling of comfortable
anticipation, as they drew their chairs to the fireside and
began to look over the local occurrences of the past week, the
"freshest foreign advices," and the various bits of information
that had filtered slowly from the northern and more southern
provinces.

On this particular evening the subscribers to both news-
papers found a trifle more news in the "Journal," but in
each paper the same domestic items of interest, somewhat
differently worded. The latest news from Boston was that
of November fifth, from New York, November eighth, the
Annapolis item was dated Odober tenth, and the few lines
from London had been written in August.

The "Gazette " (a larger sheet than the "Journal") occa-
sionally had upon its first page some timely article of political
or local interest. But more frequently there appeared in its

[59 ]

NJ

Forgotten Booh of the

first column an effusion of no local color, but full of senti-
mental or moral refledions. In this day's issue there was a long
letter, dated New York, from one who claimed to be " Beauty's
Votary." This expressed the writer's disappointment that an
interesting " Piece " inserted in the " Gazette " a fortnight ear-
lier had presented in its conclusion "an unexpected shocking
Image." The shock to the writer it appears was the greater,
because the beginning of the article had, he thought, promised
a strong contrast between " Furious Rage in our rough Sex,
and Gentle mildness adorn'd with Beauty's charms in the
other." The rest of the letter was an apostrophe to the fair
sex in the sentimental and florid language of the period.

To the women, we imagine, this letter was more accept-
able than to the men, who found the shipping news more to
their taste, and noted with pleasure the arrival of the ship
Carolina and the Snow Strong, which brought cargoes valu-
able for their various industries.

Advertisements filled a number of columns. Among them
was one so novel in its charade r that it must have caught the
eye of all readers. The middle column on the second page
was devoted almost entirely to an announcement that John
Newbery had for "Sale to Schoolmasters, Shopkeepers, &c,
who buy in quantities to sell again," "The Museum," "A new
French Primer," "The Royal Battledore," and "The Pretty
Book for Children." This notice — a reduced fac-simile of
which is given — made Newbery's debut in Philadelphia; and
it must not be forgotten that but a short period had elapsed
since his first book had been printed in England.

Franklin had doubtless heard of the publisher in St. Paul's

[60]

P^AtMfUSEVM for young Gint; _

Or, A pri»«ieTcTo»forliti:lc:MAiT*Mwi*Mi«»«»
Containing a Vaxietf «rf ufe.ul Subjcd» } and in farticvikr,

I. Dircftion* for reading with ElcKjurncc and Ptopricty.

II. The anticnt and ^t>nf State of Crtat Britaim j with a cotnp«n-
dicus Hiftory of Sn^tland.

ni. An Account of the folar Sjflcm. ,

IV. Hift..:ki<l and Geogiaphical Uticription of the feveral Coim- .
tries iji ih« World ; with the Manners, Cufioms, and Habit* of •
the IVoi-lr.

V. An Aico' rt of the Arts and S>:iences.

^

R.;!'-i I ir iJthsvio'ir
VJI. AiK . to ;r<-ng Perfoni on their entering upon the VTorldi.?
^_ wiir. /h r Riilt; cf Religion and Morality.
[Vlll, TiU'?ot Weghtsand Mefllures.

IX. F."' [)i.in.iti"n of Abhri^ia'ions uT-d in Words and Datfi.

X. A U(ft-.?r.on of frejh:iv/hf-^}i>6ry, St. PmuI'} Churtb ; with*
t!ie75i .", .:nd Motimr.irt in Lodsm.

XI. 1 b" r..' n W.,yirs ot the World.

;'Xii. Pi '^>v*^ and L>elcrirt;<)n ot tl>e turning Mountain.
I XIH. DMr./Vv'ords and' Behaviour of great Mm, when juft quit-
ting the i)ti<^c cf Life ; with many other ufefu! Pirtitulars, all
in I plaiti familiar Way for Youthof both Sexes.
Intirfpetfed with LettV.rs, TAtes. and F.ablh, for Amufe-
R n-.cit mi Inftruftion, and illustmted with Cuts.

f (Being a S tond Volume to the Pret/y Bosk isr Ckildren.)

Londcn, prin'cd for J. Hodges, an the Bridge; J. Ntwbciry.ia
St. FjiuI's Churth-yard, and B. Coliinsj in SaJifturj.

, Laieh TuhhjVi, hung a vtry pro^r Btci fur Children, or fjng
Pcifi.s ti M art lettrr.iig French, (Price S:X Ptmt, tieMly tturj,
at:! ai'cr-:' d 'luHh Cuts, , ■

A Ae^v F^KvcH PRIMER} Or, ALPHABET ROYAL:

ou GUIDE Commode & agtcable

Dans L • A R T D E LIRE,

Poar fcrvJr d'liitrodndlion'
I Au CixcLx Des SciiNcEi

, Publie pat 4 U T 0 R I r E.

I A I^'n.'rfs, (xiur J. Kf^nben', a i'sufeignedela Bible & du So*

I Icil, C.met-ere de .S. PavU; &' B. IToUins, a Saliftury. An Al-
b lowance will b; made on both the above Books, to thofe that buy
P them by the Dozen to fell again.
[ ' i?y A, U T O R I T Y.

\ Let:'-, p^rijh^d in London, for the Ufe of Sdotls ari private ft-
• «,i I'i, rnd numbly addtefs'd to the Parc-n.'.', Cuardiam, CovtrntJ-

j ft!, clool-Mafitn, &V. in Great-Britain and Ireland, tAx.
i ^^- R O Y A L B A T T L E D O R E t'.,
, o «> •«

: FIRSTTBOOK/«.rCHIlr©REN:

BEING the Alphaitt, or Twenty-four Letters, Great and
Small, l.iid dov/n ia • plain, cafy, and entertaining Manner,
f in en"., rio induce Children to learn their Letters; together, with the
^ CcKhic Letters, the firft Syllablcj, Lord's Prayer, Figures, &e.
f Ai!or;.M vijth Tivtnty-fmtr Cats, ajid Explanations to each, adapted
, to the Capacities even of Children who h»ve bat juft leam'd t(»
J fpeak. Neatly BounH, Gilt and Glaz'd, Price fl«^ Twa-Af**.
4 (After which the next proper Booic for Children kj

Ti.5 R O Y A L P R I M E Rj
Or, mEasy fl»</PI.^A5A^TGulD«r»fi<^ ART»/READINC.
t TNTERSPEXSED with a gieat variety of pleafant and dircrt-
8 A '"g Stories, witlv fuitahle Morals and Reflexions ; which are
\f convc, 'i? '.3 th^ir tsndet Minds by a Kumbet of entertaining and te-
j ligio'is i;.n;.-,f:o!n.

I Ciii^ tn '.;Ue ter.;!cr OsaVrj take the Bow,

g Aj'.ri as tl.ey firft are faihion'd always grow, D»rii»M,

^ Embelliilied with Txueiitj-jtvin Cuts, and neatly Bound and Gilt*
^ ' Price ctly Tbm-penct.

(The next Booic to be Isam'd after the Primer is)
Tit PRETTY B O O K jftr C H I L D R E N :
tttbt En«

Or, An Easy Gitidk ,

■iOtlSK TONGI

- CO well adapted toUicir Capacities, that it fuUy anfwers the End
7 ^ of a Child's Guide, Spelling Books, Pfalter, and Kiftory Book,
y Defign'd for the etfy Inlintdjon of thofe that cannot read, as wcU
r; as for the Entertainment of tlwfc that can. And confiAs of, ift.

- The Alphabet difpos'i in Squares, ad. The Alptdet in diifereot
e Charflfun, 3d. The Vmieh and Conjaruints. 4th. Eafy Syllahlut
5 and Words of one, two, and three Syllables. 5th. Eafy LtJfsiHj
y Scripturt-Hiftories, FaWles, Stories, Moral and Religious Precepts,
,r Proverbs, Maxims, Riddles, Verfes, Numbers, Jeib, &c._ 6th.
;r Dialogues, Prayers, Graces, ©"r. The jourth Edition, wrote in
e a familiar eafy Style. Adom'd with Tli^^ecn Cuts, and neatly
n Bound and Gilt ; and is the cheap«ft as well as the mcft ufefd
y Book of the Kind yet pubUflied.. Price oa^ Six-pence.

; - -Train up a Child in tbt Way htjbwldgi, andivbtv bt it tild

', be xaill not dipartfram ir. ^ K. Solomon.

,s London i Printed and Sold by J. New^eiry, In St. Paul'sChurch-

e Yard^ J. Hodges on the Bridge ; and^. Collins, Bookfcll.-r, on the

y New Canal in Salifbuxy. Bjr whoih good Allowance Is made to all
Shop-kcepei?, Schcol-Miyfters, Q't . wholipyQgnjttitlfe to fell again.

John Newberfs Advertisement
of Children's Books

l/

American Nursery

Churchyard through Mr. Strahan, his correspondent, who
filled orders for him from London booksellers; but the omis-
sion of the customary announcement of special books as "to
be had of the Printer hereof" points to Newbery's enterprise
in seeking a wider market for his wares, and Franklin's busi-
ness ability in securing the advertisement, as it is not repeated
in the "Journal."

This "Museum" was probably a newer book than the
"Royal Primer," "Battledore," and "Pretty Book," and con-
sequently was more fully described; and oddly enough, all
of these books are of earlier editions than Mr. Welsh, New-
bery's biographer, was able to trace in England.

"The Museum" still clings to the same idea which per-
vaded "The Play-thing." Its second title reads: "A private
Tutor for little Masters and Misses." The contents show
that this purpose was carried out. It tutored them by giving
directions for reading with eloquence and propriety; by pre-
senting " the antient and present State of Great Britain with
a compendious History oi England ;'' by instru6ting them in
" the Solar System, geography. Arts and Sciences " and the in-
evitable "Rules for Behaviour, Religion and Morality;" and
it admonished them by giving the " Dying Words of Great
Men when just quitting the Stage of Life." As a museum it
included descriptions of the Seven Wonders of the World,
Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Churchyard, and the Tower of
London, with an ethnological sedion in the geographical de-
partment ! All of this amusement was to be had for the price
of " One Shilling," neatly bound, with, thrown in as good
measure, "Letters, Tales and Fables illustrated with Cuts."

[6i ]

I

Forgotten Books of the

Such a library, complete in itself, was a fine and most wel-
come reward for scholarship, when prizes were awarded at the
end of the school session.

Importations of "Parcels of entertaining books for chil-
dren" had earlier in the year been announced through the
columns of the "Gazette;" but these importations, though
they show familiarity with Newbery's quaint phraseology in
advertising, probably also included an assortment of such
little chap-books as "Tom Thumb," "Cinderella" (from the
French of Monsieur Perrault), and some few other old sto-
ries which the children had long since appropriated as their
own property.

In 1751 we find New York waking up to the apprecia-
tion of children's books. There J. Waddell and James
Parker were apparently the pioneers in bringing to public
notice the fad that they had for sale little novel-books in
addition to horn-books and primers; and moreover the
"Weekly Post-Boy" advertised that these booksellers had
"Pretty Books for little Masters and Misses" (clearly a
Newbery imitation), "with Blank Flourished Christmas
pieces for Scholars."

But as yet even Franklin had hardly been convinced that
the old way of imparting knowledge was not superior to the
then modern combination of amusement and instrudion;
therefore, although with his partner, David Hall, he without
doubt sold such children's books as were available, for his
daughter Sally, aged seven, he had other views. At his re-
quest his wife, in December, 1751, wrote the following letter
to William Strahan:

[ 62 ]

1/

American Nursery

Madam, — I am ordered by my Master to write for him
Books for Sally Franklin. I am in Hopes She will be abel
to write for herself by the Spring.

8 Sets of the Perceptor best Edit.

8 Doz. of Croxall's Fables.

3 Doz. of Bishop Kenns Manual for Winchester School.

1 Doz. Familiar Forms, Latin and Eng.
Ainsworth's Didionaries, 4 best Edit.

2 Doz. Seled Tales and Fables.

2 Doz. Costalio's Test.

Cole's Didionarys Latin and Eng. 6 a half doz.

3 Doz. of Clarke's Cordery. 1 Boyle's Pliny 2 vols. 8vo.
6 Sets of Nature displayed in 7 vols. i2mo.

One good Quarto Bibel with Cudes bound in calfe.

1 Penrilla. 1 Art of making Common Salt. By Browning.

My Dafter gives her duty to Mr. Stroyhan and his Lady,
and her compliments to Master Billy and all his brothers
and Sisters. . . .

Your humbel Servant

Deborah Franklin

Little Sally Franklin could not have needed eight dozen
copies of Aesop's Fables, nor four Ainsworth's Didionaries,
so it is probable that Deborah Franklin's far from ready pen
put down the book order for the spring, and that Sally her-
self was only to be supplied with the "Perceptor," the "Fa-
bles," and the "one good Quarto Bibel."

As far as it is now possible to judge, the people of the

[63]

\j Forgotten Books of the

towns soon learned the value of Newbery's little nursery
tales, and after seventeen hundred and fifty-five, when most
of his books were written and published, they rapidly
gained a place on the family book-shelves in America.

By seventeen hundred and sixty Hugh Gaine, printer,
publisher, patent medicine seller, and employment agent for
New York, was importing pradically all the Englishman's
juvenile publications then for sale. At the "Bible and Crown,"
where Gaine printed the "Weekly Mercury," could be
bought, wholesale and retail, such books as, "Poems for
Children Three Feet High," "Tommy Trapwit," "Trip's
Book of Pidures," "The New Year's Gift," "The Christmas
Box," etc.

Gaine himself was a prominent printer in New York in
the latter half of the eighteenth century. Until the Revolu-
tion his shop was a favorite one and well patronized. But
when the hostilities began, the condition of his pocket seems
to have regulated his sympathies, and he was by turn Whig
and Tory according to the possession of New York by so-
called Rebels, or King's Servants. When the British army
evacuated New York, Gaine, wishing to keep up his trade,
dropped the "Crown" from his sign. Among the enthusiastic
patriots this ruse had scant success. In Freneau's political
satire of the bookseller, the first verse gives a strong sugges-
tion of the ridicule to follow :

"And first, he was, in his own representation,
A printer, once of good reputation.
He dwelt in the street called Hanover-Square,
(You '11 know where it is if you ever was there

[64]

American Nursery

Next door to the dwelling of Mr. Brownjohn,
Who now to the drug-shop of Pluto is gone)
But what do I say — who e'er came to town.
And knew not Hugh Gaine at the Bible and Crown"

A contemporary of, and rival bookseller to, Gaine in seven-
teen hundred and sixty was James Rivington. Mr. Hildeburn
has given Rivington a rather unenviable reputation; still, as
he occasionally printed (?) a child's book, Mr. Hildeburn's
remarks are quoted:

"Until the advent of Rivington it was generally possible
to tell from an American Bookseller's advertisement in the
current newspapers whether the work offered for sale was
printed in America or England. But the books he received
in every fresh invoice from London were 'just published by
James Rivington' and this form was speedily adopted by
other booksellers, so that after 1761 the advertisement of
books is no longer a guide to the issues of the colonial
press."

Although Rivington did not set up a press until about
seventeen hundred and seventy-three, — according to Mr.
Hildeburn, — he had a book-shop much earlier. Here he
probably reprinted the title-page and then put an elaborate
notice in the "Weekly Mercury" for November 17, 1760,
as follows:

JAMES RIVINGTON
Bookseller and Stationer from London over against the Golden
Key in Hanover Square.

This day is published, Price, seven Shillings, and sold by the said
James Rivington, adorned with two hundred Pidures

[65 ]

Forgotten Books of the

THE
FABLES OF AESOP

with a moral to each Fable in Verse, and an Application in Prose,
intended for the Use of the youngest of readers, and proper to be put
into the hands of Children, immediately after they have done with the
Spelling-Book, it being adapted to their tender Capacities, the Fables
are related in a short and lively Manner, and they are recommended
to all those who are concerned in the education of Children. This is
an entire new Work, elegantly printed and ornamented with much
better Cuts than any other Edition of Aesop's Fables. Be pleased to
ask for DRAPER'S AESOP.

From such records of parents' care as are given in Mrs. Charles
Pinckney's letters to her husband's agent in London, and
Josiah Quincy's reminiscences of his early training, it seems
very evident that John Locke's advice in "Thoughts on Edu-
cation" was read and followed at this time in the American
colonies. Therefore, in accordance with the bachelor philoso-
pher's theory as to reading-matter for little children, the book-
seller recommended the "Fables" to "those concerned in the
education of children." It is at least a happy coincidence that
one of the earliest books (as far as is known to the writer),
aside from school and religious books, issued as published in
America for children, should have been the one Locke had
so heartily recommended. This is what he had said many
years previously: "When by these gentle ways he begins to
read^ some easy pleasant Book, suited to his capacities, should
be put into his Hands, wherein the Entertainment that he
finds might draw him on, and reward his Pains in Reading,
and yet not such as will fill his head with perfedly useless
|Trumpery, or lay the Principles of Vice and Folly. To this

[66]

y

American Nursery

Purpose, I think Aesop's Fables the best which being Stories
apt to deHght and entertain a child, may yet afford useful Re-

fledions to a grown Man If his Aesop has pidures in it,

it will entertain him much better and encourage him to read."
The two hundred pidures in Rivington's edition made it, of
course, high priced in comparison with Newbery's books: but
New York then contained many families well able to afford
this outlay to secure such an acquisition to the family library.

Hugh Gaine at this time, as a rule, received each year two
shipments of books, among which were usually some for chil-
dren, yet about 1 762 he began to try his own hand at reprint-
ing Newbery's now famous little duodecimos. *

In that year we find an announcement through the "New
York Mercury" that he had himself printed "Divers divert-
ing books for infants." The following list gives some idea of
their charader:

Just published by Hugh Gaine

A pretty Book for Children; Or an Easy Guide to the English Tongue.

The private Tutor for little Masters and Misses.

Food for the Mind; or a new Riddle Book compiled for the use of
little Good Boys and Girls in America. By Jack the Giant-Killer,
Esq.

A Colledion of Pretty Poems, by Tommy Tag, Esq.

Aesop's Fables in Verse, with the Conversation of Beasts and Birds,
at their several Meetings. By Woglog the great Giant.

A Little pretty Book, intended for the Amusement of Little Master
Tommy and pretty Miss Polly, with two Letters from Jack the
Giant-Killer.

Be Merry and Wise : Or the Cream of the Jests. By Tommy Trap-
wit, Esq.

[67 ]

I.

Forgotten Books of the

The title of "Food for the Mind" is of special importance,
since in it Gaine made a clever alteration by inserting the
words " Good Boys and Girls in America'' The colonials were
already beginning to feel a pride in the fa6t of belonging to
the new country, America, and therefore Gaine shrewdly
changed the English title to one more likely to induce people
to purchase.

Gaine and Rivington alone have left records of printing
children's story-books in the town of New York before the
Revolution; but before they began to print, other book-
sellers advertised their invoices of books. In 1759 Garrat
Noel, a Dutchman, had announced that he had "the very
prettiest gilt Books for little Masters and Misses that ever
were invented, full of wit and wisdom, at the surprising low
Price of only one Shilling each finely bound and adorned
with a number of curious Cuts." By 1762 Noel had increased
his stock and placed a somewhat larger advertisement in
the "Mercury " of December 27. The late arrival of his goods
may have been responsible for the bargains he offered at this
holiday sale.

GARRAT NOEL Begs Leave to Inform the Public, that
according to his Annual Custom, he has provided a very large
Assortment of Books for Entertainment and Improvement of
Touth, in Reading, Writing, Cyphering, and Drawing, as
Proper Presents at Christmas and New- Year.

The following Small, but improving Histories, are sold at Two Shil-
lings, each, neatly bound in red, and adorn'd with Cuts.
Jl^^ Those who buy Six, shall have a Seventh Gratis, and buying

[68]

American Nursery

only Three,, they shall have a present of a fine large Copper-Plate

Christmas Piece: [Z/V/ of histories follows.'^

The following neat Gilt Books, very instrudlive and Amusing being

full of Pi6lures, are sold at Eighteen Pence each.

Fables in Verse and Prose, with the Conversation of Birds & Beasts
at their several meetings, Routs and Assemblies for the Improve-
ment of Old and Young, etc.

To-day none of these gay little volumes sold in New York
are to be seen. The inherent faculty of children for losing
and destroying books, coupled with the perishable nature
of these toy volumes, has rendered the children's treasures
of seventeen hundred and sixty-two a great rarity. The His-
torical Society of Pennsylvania is the fortunate possessor of
one much prized story-book printed in that year; but though
it is at present in the Quaker City, a printer of Boston was
responsible for its produdion.

In Isaiah Thomas's recolledions of the early Boston
printers, he described Zechariah Fowle, with whom he
served his apprenticeship, and Samuel Draper, Fowle's
partner. These men, about seventeen hundred and fifty-
seven, took a house in Marlborough Street. Here, according
to Thomas, "they printed and opened a shop. They kept a
great supply of ballads, and small pamphlets for book ped-
lars, of whom there were many at that time. Fowle was bred
to the business, but he was an indifferent hand at the press,
and much worse at the case."

This description of the printer's ability is borne out by the
j "New-Gift for Children," printed by this firm. It is proba-
! bly the oldest story-book bearing an American imprint now

[69]

\i

Forgotten Books of the

in existence, and for this reason merits description, although
its contents can be seen in the pidure of the title-page.
Brown with age and like all chap-books without a cover
— for it was Newbery who introduced this more durable
and attradive feature — all sizes in type were used to print
its fifteen stories. The stories in themselves were not new,
as it is called the "Fourth edition." It is possible that they
were taken from the Banbury chap-books, which also often
copied Newbery's juvenile library, as the list of his publi-
cations compiled by Mr. Charles Welsh does not contain
this title.

The loyalty of the Boston printers found expression on
the third page by a very black cut of King George the
Third, who appears rather puzzled and not a little unhappy;
but it found favor with customers, for as yet the colonials
thought their king "no man of blood." On turning the page
Queen Charlotte looks out with goggle-eyes, curls, and a row
of beads about the size of pebbles around her thick neck. The
pi6ture seems to be a copy from some miniature of the queen,
as an oval frame with a crown surmounting it encircles the
portrait. The stories are so much better than some that were
written even after the nineteenth century, that extrads from
them are worth reading. The third tale, called " The Gener-
osity of Confessing a Fault," begins as follows:

"Miss Fanny Goodwill was one of the prettiest children
that ever was seen; her temper was as sweet as her looks, and
her behavior so genteel and obhging that everybody admir'd
her; for nobody can help loving good children, any more than
they can help being angry with those that are naughty. It is

[70]

fg New Gift for Children. %i

Containing ^

Delightful and Entertaining ^

stories!

In riP'O PARTS i ^

VIZ. ii

1. The Dutiful Child. %

2. The Thief. ^

3. The Generofity of confcfling a Fault. ^

4. The two good Fiiends. ^

5. The R'^wards of Virtue. ^

SECOND PART. H

6. The Good Boy. ^

7. The Good Girl. %

8. 1 he Proud Play-mate. S

9. The good Girl and ihe pretty Girl. ^

10. '\ he meanly proud Girl. ^

11. TheTrifler. ||

12. The undutiful Child. c^

13. The loft Child. p

14. The Advantages of Truth. ^

1 5. Of Tommy Fido. ^

r/;^ FOURTH EDITION.
AdornM with CUTS.

^ Bofton ; New- England ; Printed and Sold «^
fg by Fovjle & X)r^^^r,.inMarlboro% Street, w?
^ M,DCC,LXIT. Il

^itle-f age from "-^he New Gift for
Children "

American Nursery

no wonder then that her papa and mama lov'd her dearly, they
took a great deal of pains to improve her mind so that before
she was seven years old, she could read, and talk, and work
like a little woman. One day as her papa was sitting by the
fire, he set her upon his knees, kiss'd her, and told her how
very much he lov'd her; and then smiling, and taking hold of
her hand, My dear Fanny, said he, take care never to tell a lye,
and then I shall always love you as well as I do now. You or
I may be guilty of a fault; but there is something noble and
generous in owning our errors, and striving to mend them;
but a lye more than doubles the fault, and when it is found
out, makes the lyar appear mean and contemptible. . . .
Thus, my dear, the lyar is a wretch, whom nobody trusts,
nobody regards, nobody pities. Indeed papa, said Miss Fanny ^
I would not be such a creature for all the world. You are
very good, my little charmer^ said her papa and kiss'd her
again."

The inevitable temptation came when Mis^ Fanny went on
"a visit to a Miss in the neighborhood; her mama ordered her
to be home at eight o'clock; but she was engag'd at play, and
did not mind how the time pass'd, so that she stay'd till near
ten; and then her mama sent for her." The child of course
was frightened by the lateness of the hour, and the maid —
who appears in the illustration with cocked hat and musket!
— tried to calm her fears with the advice to "tell her mama
that the Miss she went to see had taken her out." ''^No Mary^
said Miss Fanny ^ wiping her pretty eyes, I am above a lye ; "
and she rehearsed for the benefit of the maid her father's
admonition.

[71]

J

Forgotten Books of the

Story IX tells of the Good Girl and Pretty Girl. In this the
pretty child had bright eyes and pretty plump cheeks and was
much admired. She, however, was a meanly proud girl, and
so naughty as not to want to grow wiser, but applied to those
good people who happened to be less favored in looks such
terms as "bandy-legs, crump, and all such naughty names."
The good sister "could read before the pretty miss could tell a
letter; and though her shape was not so genteel her behavior
was a great deal more so. But alas ! the pretty creature fell sick
of the small-pox, and all her beauty vanished." Thus in the
eighteenth century was the adage "Beauty is but skin deep"
brought to bear upon condud.

On the last page is a cut of "Louisburg demoHshed," which
had served its time already upon almanacs, but the eight cuts
were undoubtedly made especially for children. Moreover,
since they do not altogether illustrate the various stories, they
are good proof that similar chap-book tales were printed by
Fowle and Draper for little ones before the War of Inde-
pendence.

In the southern provinces the sea afforded better trans-
portation facilities for household necessities and luxuries than
the few post-lines from the north could offer. Bills of exchange
could be drawn against London, to be paid by the profits of
the tobacco crops, a safer method of payment than any that
then existed between the northern and southern towns. In the
regular orders sent by George Washington to Robert Carey
in London, twice we find mention of the children's needs and
wishes. In the very first invoice of goods to be shipped to
Washington after his marriage with Mrs. Custis in seventeen

[72]

American Nursery

hundred and fifty-nine, he ordered "lo ShiUings worth of
Toys, 6 Httle books for children beginning to read and a fash-
ionable dressed baby to cost lo Shillings;" and again later in
ordering clothes, "Toys, Sugar, Images and Comfits" for his
step-children he added: "Books according to the enclosed list
to be charged equally to John Parke Custis and Martha Parke
Custis."

But in Boston the people bought diredly from the book-
sellers, of whom there were already many. One of these was
John Mein, who played a part in the historic Non-Importa-
tion Agreement. In seventeen hundred and fifty this Eng-
lishman had opened in King Street a shop which he called the
"London Book-Store." Here he sold many imported books,
and in seventeen hundred and sixty-five, when the popula-
tion of Boston numbered some twenty thousand, he started
the "earliest circulating library, advertised to contain ten
thousand volumes."* This shop was both famous and notori-
ous : famous because of its " Very Grand Assortment of the
most modern Books;" notorious because of the accusations
made against its owner when the colonials, aroused by the
adion of Parliament, passed the Non-Importation Agreement.

Before the excitement had culminated in this " Agreement,"
John Mein's lists of importations show that the children's
pleasure had not been forgotten, and after it their books
singularly enough were conneded with this historic adion.

In 1766, in the "Boston Evening Post," we find Mein's
announcement that " Little Books with Pidures for Children "
could be purchased at the London Book-Store; in December,

* Winsor, Memorial History of Boston, vol. ii, p. xix.

[ 73 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

1767, he advertised through the columns of the "Boston
Chronicle," among other books, "in every branch of polite
literature," a "Great Variety of entertaining Books for Chil-
dren, proper for presents at Christmas or New-year's day —
Prices from Two Coppers to Two Shillings." In August of
the following year Mein gave the names of seven of New- ;
bery's famous gilt volumes, as "to be sold" at his shop. These
"pretty little entertaining and instru6tive Books" were "Giles
Gingerbread," the "Adventures of little Tommy Trip with
his dog JouLER," "Tommy Trip's Seled Fables," and "an
excellent Pastoral Hymn," " The Famous Tommy Thumb's
Little Story-Book," "Leo, the Great Giant," and "Urax, or
the Fair Wanderer — price eight pence lawful money. Avery
interesting tale in which the protection of the Almighty is proved
to be the first and chief support of the Female Sex." Num-
ber seven in the list was the story of the " Cruel Giant Bar-
barico," and it is one of this edition that is now among the
rare Americana of the Boston Public Library. The imprint
upon its title-page coincides with Isaiah Thomas's statement
that though " Fleming was not concerned with Mein in book-
selling, several books were printed at their house for Mein."
Its date, 1768, would indicate that Mein had reproduced one
of his importations to which allusion has already been made.
The book in marbled covers, time-worn and faded now, was
sold for only" six-pence lawful" when new, possibly because
it lacked illustrations.

One year later, when the Non-Importation Agreement had
passed and was rigorously enforced in the port of Boston,
these same little books were advertised again in the "Chroni-

[ 74]

Miss Fanny's Maid

American Nursery

cle" of December 4-7 under the large caption, Printed
IN America and to be sold by John Mein. Times had so
changed within one year's space that even a child's six-penny
book was unpopular, if known to have been imported.

Mein was among those accused of violating the "Agree-
ment ; " he was charged with the importation of materials for
book-making. In a November number of the " Chronicle "
of seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, Mein published an
article entitled "A State of the Importation from Great
Britain into the Port of Boston with the advertisement of
a set of Men, who assume to themselves The Title oi ALL
the Well Disposed Merchants" In this letter the London Book-
Store proprietor vigorously defended himself, and protested
that the quantity of his work necessitated some importations
not procurable in Boston. He also made sarcastic references
to other men whom he thought the cap fitted better with
less excuse. It was in the following December that he tried
to keep this trade in children's books by his apparently patri-
otic announcement regarding them. His protests were use-
less. Already in disfavor with some because he was supposed
to print books in America but used a London imprint, his
popularity waned ; he was marked as a loyalist, and there was
little of the spirit of tolerance for such in that hot-bed of
patriotism. The air was so full of the growing differences
between the colonials and the king's government, that in
seventeen hundred and seventy Mein closed out his stock
and returned to England.

On the other hand, the patriotic booksellers did not fail to
ke note of the crystallization of public opinion. Robert Bell

[ 75 ]

Forgotten Books of the

in Philadelphia appended a note to his catalogue of books,
I stating that "The Lovers and Pradisers of Patriotism are
j requested to note that all the Books in this Catalogue are
either of American manufadure, or imported before the Non-
Importation Agreement."

The supply of home-made paper was of course limited.
So much was needed to circulate among the colonies pam-
phlets dealing with the injustice of the king's government
toward his American subjeds, that it seems remarkable that
any juvenile books should have been printed in those stirring
days before the war began. It is rather to be expeded that,
with the serious turn that events had taken and the consequent
questions that had arisen, the publications of the American
press should have received the shadow of the forthcoming
trouble — a shadow sufficient to discourage any attempt at
humor for adult or child. Evidence, however, points to the
fad that humor and amusement were not totally lacking in
the issues of the press of at least one printer in Boston, John
Boyle. The humorous satire produced by his press in seven-
teen hundred and seventy-five, called "The First Book of the
American Chronicles of the Times," purported to set forth
the state of political affairs during the troubles "wherein all
our calamities are seen to flow from the fad that the king
had set up for our worship the god of the heathen — The Tea
Chest." This pamphlet has been one to keep the name of John
Boyle among the prominent printers of pre-Revolutionary
days. Additional interest accrues for this reason to a play-
book printed by Boyle — the only one extant of this decade
known to the writer.

[ 76]

American Nursery

This quaint little chap-book, three by four inches in size,
was issued in seventeen hundred and seventy-one, soon after
Boyle had set up his printing establishment and four years
before the publication of the famous pamphlet. It represents
fully the standard for children's literature in the days when
Newbery's tiny classics were making their way to America,
and was indeed advertised by Mein in seventeen hundred and
sixty-eight among the list of books "Printed in America." Its
title, "The Famous Tommy Thumb's Little Story-Book :
Containing his Life and Adventures," has rather a familiar
sound, but its contents would not now be allowed upon any
nursery table. Since the days of the Anglo-Saxons, Tom
Thumb's adventures have been told and retold; each genera-
tion has given to the rising generation the version thought
proper for the ears of children. In Boyle's edition this method
resulted in realism pushed to the extreme; but it is not to be
denied that the yellowed pages contain the wondrous adven-
tures and hairbreadth escapes so dear to the small boy of all
time. The thrilling incidents were further enlivened, moreover,
by cuts called by the printer ^'' curious'' in the sense of very
fine : and curious they are to-day because of the crudeness of
their execution and the coarseness of their design. Neverthe-
less, the grotesque charader of the illustrations was altogether
efFedive in impressing upon the reader the doughty deeds of
his old friend, Tom Thumb. The book itself shows marks
of its popularity, and of the hard usage to which it was sub-
jected by its happy owner, who was not critical of the editor's
freedom of speech.

The coarseness permitted in a nursery favorite makes it

[77]

L

Forgotten Books of the

sufficiently clear that the standard for the ideal toy-book of
the eighteenth century is no gauge for that of the twentieth.
Child-life differed in many particulars, as Mr. Julian Haw-
thorne pointed out some years ago, when he wrote that the
children of the eighteenth century "were urged to grow up
almost before they were short-coated." We must bear this in
mind in turning to another class of books popular with adult
and child alike in both England and America before and for
some years after the Revolution.

This was the period when the novel in the hands of Rich-
ardson, Fielding, and Smollett was assuming hitherto unsus-
pe6ted possibilities. Allusion must be made to some of the
charaderistics of their work, since their style undoubtedly
affeded juvenile reading and the tales written for children.

Taking for the sake of convenience the novels of the ear-
liest of this group of men, Samuel Richardson, as a starting-
point, we find in Pamela and Mr. Lovelace types of char-
a6ter that merge from the Puritanical concrete examples
of virtue and vice into a psychological attempt to depid the
emotion and feeling preceding every ad of heroine and vil-
lain. Through every stage of the story the author still clings
to the long-established precedent of giving moral and reli-
gious instrudion. Afterwards, when Fielding attempted to
parody "Pamela," he developed the novel of adventure in
high and low life, and produced "Joseph Andrews." He then
followed this with the charade r-study represented by "Tom
Jones, Foundling." Richardson in "Pamela" had aimed to
emphasize virtue as in the end prospering; Fielding's char-
aders rather embody the principle of virtue being its own

[78]

J

American Nursery

reward and of vice bringing its own punishment. Smollett in
" Humphrey Clinker's Adventures " brought forth fun from
English surroundings instead of seeking for the hero thrill-
ing and daring deeds in foreign countries. He also added to
the Hst of charader-studies "Roderick Random," a tale of the
sea, the mystery of which has never palled since " Robinson
Crusoe " saw light.

There was also the novel of letters. In the age of the first
great novelists letter-writing was among the polite arts. It
was therefore counted a great but natural achievement when
the epistolary method of revealing the plot was introduced.
"Clarissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison" were the
results of this style of writing; they comprehended the
"most Important Concerns of private life" — "concerns"
which moved with lingering and emotional persistency
towards the inevitable catastrophe in "Clarissa," and the
happy issue out of the misunderstandings and misadventures
which resulted in Miss Byron's alliance with Sir Charles.

Until after the next (nineteenth) century had passed its
first decade these tales were read in full or abridged forms
by many children among the fashionable and literary sets in
England and America. Indeed, the art of writing for children
was so unknown that often attempts to produce child-like
"histories" for them resulted in little other than novels upon
an abridged scale.

But before even abridged novels found their way into juve-
nile favor, it was "customary in Richardson's time to read his
novels aloud in the family circle. When some pathetic passage
was reached the members of the family would retire to sepa-

[ 79 ]

Forgotten Books of the

rate apartments toweep; and after composing themselves, they
would return to the fireside to have the reading proceed. It was
reported to Richardson, that, on one of these occasions, 'an
amiable little boy sobbed as if his sides would burst and re-
solved to mind his books that he might be able to read Pamela
through without stopping.' That there might be something in
the family novel expressly for children, Richardson some-
times stepped aside from the main narrative to tell them a
moral tale." "^

Mr. Cross gives an example of this which, shorn of its deco-
ration, was the tale of two little boys and two little girls, who
never told fibs, who were never rude and noisy, mischievous
or quarrelsome ; who always said their prayers when going to
bed, and therefore became fine ladies and gentlemen.

To make the tales less difficult for amiable children to read,
an abridgment of their contents was undertaken; and Gold-
smith is said to have done much of the "cutting "in "Pamela,"
"Clarissa Harlowe," "Sir Charles Grandison," and others.
These books were included in the lists of those sent to Amer-
ica for juvenile reading. In Boston, Cox and Berry inserted
in the "Boston Gazette and Country Journal " a notice that
they had the "following little Books for all good Boys and
Girls :

The Brother's Gift, or the Naughty Girl Reformed.
The Sister's Gift, or the Naughty Boy Reformed.
The Hobby Horse, or Christmas Companion.
The Cries of London as Exhibited in the Streets.
The Puzzling Cap.
The History of Tom Jones.

* Cross, Development of the English Novelj pp. 38, 39,

[ 80 ]

American Nursery

The History of Joseph Andrews. Abridg'd from the works of

H. Fielding

The History of Pamela. abridg'd from the works of

Samuel Richardson, Esq.
The History of Grandison.
The History of Clarissa."

Up to this time the story has been rather of the books read
by the Puritan and Quaker population of the colonies. There
had arisen during the first half of the eighteenth century,
however, a merchant class which owed its prosperity to its
own ability. Such men sought for their families the material
results of wealth which only a place like Boston could bestow.
Many children, therefore, were sent to this town to acquire
suitable education in books, accomplishments, and deport-
ment. A highly interesting record of a child of well-to-do
parents has been left by Anna Green Winslow, who came
to Boston to stay with an aunt for the winters of 1771 and
1772. Her diary gives delightful glimpses of children's tea-
parties, fashions, and schools, all put down with a childish
disregard of importance or connedion. It is in these jottings
of daily occurrences that proof is found that so young a girl
read, quite as a matter of course, the abridged works of Field-
ing and Richardson.

On January 1, 1772, she wrote in her diary, " a Happy New
t Year, I have bestowed no new year's gifts, as yet. But have
received one very handsome one, Viz, the History of Joseph
Andrews abreviated. In nice Guilt and Flowers covers." Again,
she put down an account of a day's work, which she called "a
^piecemeal for in the first place I sew'd on the bosom of unkle's

[81 ]

\J

Forgotten Books of the

shirt, and mended two pairs of gloves, mended for the wash
two handkerch'fs, (one cambrick) sewed on half a border of
a lawn apron of aunt's, read part of the xxist chapter of
Exodous, & a story in the Mother's Gift." Later she jotted in
her book the loan of " 3 of Cousin Charles' books to read,
viz. — The puzzling Cap, the female Orators & the history
of Gaffer Two Shoes." Little Miss Winslow, though only
eleven years of age, was a typical child of the educated class
in Boston, and, according to her journal, also followed the
English custom of reading aloud "with Miss Winslow, the
Generous Inconstant and Sir Charles Grandison." It is to
be regretted that her diary gives no information as to how
she liked such tales. We must anticipate some years to find
a comment in the Commonplace Book of a Connedicut girl.
Lucy Sheldon lived in Litchfield, a thriving town in eighteen
hundred, and did much reading for a child in those days.
Upon "Sir Charles Grandison" she confided to her book
this oflfhand note : " Read in little Grandison, which shows
that, virtue always meets its reward and vice is punished."
The item is very suggestive of Goldsmith's success in pro-
ducing an abridgment that left the moral where it could not
be overlooked.

To discuss in detail this class of writings is not necessary,
but a glance at the story of "Clarissa" gives an instrudive
impression of what old-fashioned children found zestful.

" Clarissa Harlowe " in its abridged form was first pub-
lished by Newbery, Senior. The book that lies before the
writer was printed in seventeen hundred and seventy-two by
his son, Francis Newbery. In size five by three and one-half

[ 82]

u
American Nursery

inches, it is decked in once gay parti-colored heavy Dutch
paper, with a delicate gold tracery overall. This paper binding,
called by Anna Winslow "Flowery Guilt," can no longer be
found in Holland, the place of its manufadure ; with sarsinet
and other fascinating materials it has vanished so completely
that it exists only on the faded bindings of such small books
as " Clarissa."

The narrative itself is compressed from the original seven
volumes into one volume of one hundred and seventy-six
closely printed pages, with several full-page copper-plate
illustrations. The plot, however, gains rather than loses in
this condensed form. The principal distressing situations
follow so fast one upon the other that the intensity of the
various episodes in the affe5iing history is increased by the
total absence of all the " moving " letters found in the origi-
nal work. The " lordly husband and father," "the imperious
son," "the proud ambitious sister, Arabella," all combined
to force the universally beloved and unassuming Clarissa
to marry the wealthy Mr. Somers, who was to be the means
of "the aggrandisement of the family." Clarissa, in this per-
plexing situation, yielded in a desperate mood to "the ear-
nest entreaties of the artful Lovelace to accept the protec-
tion of the Ladies of his family." Who these ladies were, to
whom the designing Lovelace conduded the agitated hero-
ine, is set forth in unmistakable language; and thereafter
follow the treacherous behaviour exhibited by Lovelace, the
various attempts to escape by the unhappy beauty, and her
final exhaustion and death. An example of the style may be
given in this description of the death-scene :

[ 83 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

"Clarissa had before remarked that all would be most con-
veniently over in bed : The solemn, the most important mo-
ment approached, but her soul ardently aspiring after immo-
rality [immortality was of course the author's intention], she
imagined the time moved slowly; and with great presence of
mind, she gave orders in relation to her body, direding her
nurse and the maid of the house, as soon as she was cold, to
put her into her coffin. The Colonel [her cousin], after paying
her another visit, wrote to her uncle, Mr. John Harlowe, that
they might save themselves the trouble of having any further
debates about reconciliation; for before they could resolve,
his dear cousin would probably be no more. . . .

"A day or two after, Mr. Belford [a friend] was sent for,
and immediately came; at his entrance he saw the Colonel
kneeling by her bed-side with the ladies right hand in both
his, which his face covered bathing it with tears, though she
had just been endeavoring to comfort him, in noble and ele-
vated strains. On the opposite side of the bed was seated
Mrs. Lovick, who leaning against the bed's-head in a most
disconsolate manner, turned to him as soon as she saw him,
crying, O Mr. Belford, the dear lady ! a heavy sigh not per-
mitting her to say more. Mrs. Smith [the landlady] was
kneeling at the bed's feet with clasped fingers and upHfted
eyes, with tears trickling in large drops from her cheeks, as
if imploring help from the source of all comfort.

" The excellent lady had been silent a few minutes, and
was thought speechless, she moving her lips without uttering
a word; but when Mrs. Lovick, on Mr. Belford's approach,
pronounced his name, O Mr. Belford! cried she, in a faint

[ 84]

American Nursery

inward voice, Now! — now! — I bless God, all will soon be
over — a few minutes will end this strife — and I shall be
happy," etc. Her speech was long, although broken by dashes,
and again she resumed, " in a more faint and broken accent,"
the blessing and diredions. "She then sunk her head upon
the pillow ; and fainting away, drew from them her hands."
Once more she returned to consciousness, "when waving her
hand to him [Mr. Belford] and to her cousin, and bowing
her head to every one present, not omitting the nurse and
maid servant, with a faltering and inward voice, she added
Bless — Bless — you all ! — "

The illustrations, in comparison with others of the time,
are very well engraved, although the choice of subjeds is
somewhat singular. The last one represents Clarissa's friend,
"Miss Howe" (the loyal friend to whom all the absent let-
ters were addressed), "lamenting over the corpse of Clarissa,"
who lies in the coffin ordered by the heroine "to be covered
with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin."

As one lays aside this faded duodecimo, the conviction is
strong that the texture of the life of an old-fashioned child
was of coarser weave than is pleasant to contemplate. How
else could elders and guardians have placed without scruple
such books in the hands of children"? The one explanation
is to be found in such diaries as that of Anna Winslow, who
quaintly put down in her book fa6ts and occurrences denoting
the maturity already reached by a little miss of eleven.

[8s]

CHAPTER IV

1 776-1 790

The British King
Lost States thirteen.

The New England Primer ^

Philadelphia, 1797

The good little boy
That will not tell a lie.
Shall have a plum-pudding
Or hot apple-pye.

Jacky Dandy s Delight^

Worcester, 1786

^

CHAPTER IV

1776-1790

Patriotic Printers and the American Newbery

WHEN John Mein was forced to close his London
Book-Store in Boston and to return to England in
tiyyo, the children of that vicinity had need to cherish their
lix-penny books with increased care. The shadow of impend-
ing conflid was already deep upon the country when Mein
departed; and the events of the decade following seventeen
hundred and seventy-three — the year of the Boston Tea-
Party — were too absorbing and distressing for such trifling
publications as toy-books to be more than occasionally
printed. Indeed, the history of the American Revolution is
so interwoven with tales of privation of the necessities of
life that it is astonishing that any printer was able to find ink
or paper to produce even the nursery classic "Goody Two-
I Shoes," printed by Robert Bell of Philadelphia in seventeen
I hundred and seventy-six.

In New York the conditions were different. The Loyal-
ists, as long as the town was held by the British, continued
to receive importations of goods of all descriptions. Among
the booksellers, Valentine Nutter from time to time adver-
tised children's as well as adults' books. Hugh Gaine appar-
ently continued to reprint Newbery's duodecimos; and, in
a rather newer shop, Roger and Berry's, in Hanover Square,
near Gaine's, could be had "Gilt Books, together with Sta-
tionary, Jewelry, a CoUedion of the most books, bibles,
prayer-books and patent medicines warranted genuine."

[89]

\i

Forgotten Books of the

Elsewhere in the colonies, as in Boston, the children went
without new books, although very occasionally such notices
as the following were inserted in the newspapers:

Just imported and to he Sold by T^homas Bradford
At his Book-Store in Market-Street, adjoining the CofFee-house

The following Books . . .

Little Histories for Children,

Among which are. Book of Knowledge, Joe Miller's Jests, Jenny
Twitchells' ditto, the Linnet, The Lark (being colle6l:ions of best
Songs), Robin Redbreast, Choice Spirits, Argalus & Parthenia,
Valentine and Orson, Seven Wise Masters, Seven Wise Mis-
tresses, Russell's seven Sermons, Death of Abel, French Convert,
Art's Treasury, Complete Letter- Writer, Winter Evening Enter-
tainment, Stories and Tales, Triumphs of Love, being a Collec-
tion of Short Stories, Joseph Andrews, Aesop's Fables, Scotch
Rogue, Moll Flanders, Lives of Highwaymen, Lives of Pirates,
Buccaneers of America, Robinson Crusoe, Twelve Caesars.

Such was the assortment of penny-dreadfuls and religious
trads offered in seventeen hundred and eighty-one to the
Philadelphia public for juvenile reading. It is typical of the
chapmen's library peddled about the colonies long after they
had become states. "Valentine and Orson, " "The Seven Wise
Masters," " The Seven Wise Mistresses," and " Winter Even-
ing Entertainment" are found in publishers' lists for many
years, and, in spite of frequent vulgarities, there was often
no discrimination between them and Newbery's far superior
stories; but by eighteen hundred and thirty almost all of these
undesirable reprints had disappeared, being buried under the
quantities of Sunday-school tales held in high favor at that
date.

[90]

American Nursery

Meanwhile, the six years of struggle for liberty had ren-
dered the necessaries of life in many cases luxuries. As early
as seventeen hundred and seventy-five, during the siege of
Boston, provisions and articles of dress had reached such prices
that we find thrifty Mrs. John Adams, in Braintree, Massa-
chusetts, foreseeing a worse condition, writing her husband,
who was one of the Council assembled in Philadelphia, to
send her, if possible, six thousand pins, even if they should
cost five pounds. Prices continued to rise and currency to de-
preciate. In seventeen hundred and seventy-nine Mrs. Adams
reported in her letters to her husband that potatoes were ten
dollars a bushel, and writing-paper brought the same price
per pound.

Yet family life went on in spite of these increasing diffi-
culties. The diaries and letters of such remarkable women
as the patriotic Abigail Adams, the Quakeress, Mrs. Eliza
Drinker, the letters of the Loyalist and exile, James Murray,
the correspondence of Eliza Pinckney of Charleston, and the
reminiscences of a Whig family who were obliged to leave
New York upon the occupation of the town by British forces,
abound in those details of domestic life that give a many
sided pidure. Joys derived from good news of dear ones, and
family reunions; anxieties occasioned by illness, or the armies'
depredations ; courageous efforts on the part of mothers not
to allow their children's education and occupations to suffer
unnecessarily; tragedies of death and ruined homes — all are
recorded with a "particularity" for which we are now grate-
ful to the writers.

It is through these writings, also, that we are allowed

[91 ]

Forgotten Books of the

glimpses of the enthusiasm for the cause of Liberty, or King,
which was imbibed from the parents by the smallest children.
On the Whig side, patriotic mothers in New England filled
their sons with zeal for the cause of freedom and with hatred
of the tyranny of the Crown; while in the more southern col-
onies the partisanship of the little ones was no less intense.
"From the constant topic of the present conversation," wrote
the Rev. John J. Zubly (a Swiss clergyman settled in South
Carolina and Georgia), in an address to the Earl of Dartmouth
in seventeen hundred and seventy-five, — "from the constant
topic of the present conversation, every child unborn will be
impressed with the notion — it is slavery to be bound at the
will of another 'in all things whatsoever.' Every mother's milk
will convey a detestation of this maxim. Were your lordship
in America, you might see little ones acquainted with the word
of command before they can distinctly speak, and shoulder-
ing of a gun before they are well able to walk." *

The children of the Tories had also their part in the strug-
gle. To some the property of parents was made over, to save it
from confiscation in the event of the success of the American
cause. To others came the bitterness of separation from par-
ents, when they were sent across the sea to unknown relatives;
while again some faint manuscript record tells of a motherless
child brought from a comfortable home, no longer tenable, to
whatever quarters could be found within the British lines. For-
tunately, children usually adapt themselves easily to changed
conditions, and in the novelty and excitement of the life
around them, it is probable they soon forgot the luxuries of

* Tyler, Literary History of the American Re'volution, vol. i, p. 485.

[9^]

1/

American Nursery

dolls and hobby-horses, toy-books and drums, of former days.

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania the sentiment of
the period was expressed in two or three editions of " The
New England Primer." Already in 1770 one had appeared
containing as frontispiece a poor wood-cut of John Hancock.
In 1775 the enthusiasm over the appointment of George
Washington as commander-in-chief brought out another edi-
tion of the ABC book with the same pidure labelled "Gen-
eral Washington." The custom of making one cut do duty
in several representations was so well understood that this
method of introducing George Washington to the infant
reader naturally escaped remark.

Another primer appeared four years later, which was adver-
tised by Walters and Norman in the "Pennsylvania Evening
Post" as "adorned with a beautiful head of George Washing-
ton and other copper-plates." According to Mr. Hildeburn,
this small book had the honor of containing the first portrait
of Washington engraved in America. While such fads are of
trifling importance, they are, nevertheless, indications of the
state of intense feeling that existed at the time, and point the
way by which the children's books became nationalized.

In New England the very games of children centred in the
events which thrilled the country. Josiah Quincy remembered
very well in after life, how " at the age of five or six, astride
my grandfather's cane and with my little whip, I performed
prodigies of valor, and more than once came to my mother's
knees declaring that I had driven the British out of Boston."
Afterwards at Phillips Academy, in Andover, between seven-
teen hundred and seventy-eight and seventeen hundred and

[93]

Forgotten Books of the

eighty-six, Josiah and his schoolfellows "established it as
a principle that every hoop, sled, etc., should in some way-
bear thirteen marks as evidence of the political charader of
the owner, — if which were wanting the articles became fair
prize and were condemned and forfeited without judge, jury,
or decree of admiralty." ^

Other boys, such as John Quincy Adams, had tutors at
home as a less expensive means of education than the war-
time price of forty dollars a week for each child that good
boarding-schools demanded. But at their homes the children
had plenty of opportunity to show their intense enthusiasm
for the cause of liberty. Years later, Mr. Adams wrote to
a Quaker friend:

" For the space of twelve months my mother with her infant
children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and of the night
to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried to Boston
as hostages. My mother lived in uninterrupted danger of being
consumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a torch
in the same hands which on the Seventeenth of June [1775]
lighted the fires of Charles town." f

He was, of course, only one of many boys who saw from
some height near their homes the signs of battle, the fires of
the enemy's camps, the smoke rising from some farm fired by
the British, or burned by its owner to prevent their occupation
of it. With hearts made to beat quickly by the news that fil-
tered through the lines, and heads made old by the respon-
sibility thrust upon them, — in the absence of fathers and older

*Life of Josiah ^incy^ p. 27. Boston, 1866.
fEarle, Child Life in Colonial Daysy p. 171.

[94]

American Nursery

brothers, — such boys as John Quincy Adams saw adive ser-
vice in the capacity of post-riders bearing in their several
distrids the anxiously awaited tidings from Congress or
battlefield.

Fortunate indeed were the families whose homes were not
disturbed by the military operations. From Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia, families were sent hastily to the country
until the progress of the war made it possible to return to such
comforts as had not been destroyed by the British soldiers. The
"Memoirs of Eliza Morton," afterward Mrs. Josiah Quincy,
but a child eight years of age in seventeen hundred and sev-
enty-six, gives a realistic account of the life of such Whig
refugees. Upon the occupation of New York by the British,
her father, a merchant of wealth, as riches were then reckoned,
was obliged to burn his warehouse to save it from English
hands. Mr. Morton then gathered together in the little country
village of Basking Ridge, seven miles from Morristown, New
Jersey, such of his possessions as could be hastily transported
from the city. Among the books saved in this way were the
works of Thurston, Thomson, Lyttleton, and Goldsmith, and
for the children's benefit, "Dodsley's Colledion of Poems,"
and " Pilgrim's Progress." " This," wrote Mrs. Quincy, " was
a great favorite; Mr. Greatheart was in my opinion a hero,
well able to help us all on our way." During the exile from
New York, as Eliza Morton grew up, she read all these books,
and years afterward told her grandchildren that while she ad-
mired the works of Thurston, Thomson, and Lyttleton, "those
of Goldsmith were my chief delight. When my reading be-
came afterward more extensive I instindively disliked the

[95 ]

Forgotten Books of the

extravagant fidion which often injures the youthful mind."
The war, however, was not allowed to interfere with the
children's education in this family. In company with other
little exiles, they were taught by a venerable old man until
the evacuation of Philadelphia made it possible to send the
older children to Germantown, where a Mr. Leslie had what
was considered a fine school. The schoolroom walls were hung
with lists of texts of Scripture beginning with the same let-
ter, and for globes were substituted the schoolmaster's snuff-
box and balls of yarn. If these failed to impress a child with
the corre6b notions concerning the solar system, the children
themselves were made to whirl around the teacher.

In Basking Ridge the children had much excitement with
the passing of soldiers to Washington's headquarters in Mor-
ristown, and with watching for "The Post" who carried
the news between Philadelphia, Princeton, and Morristown.
"'The Post,' Mr. Martin," wrote Mrs. Quincy, "was an old
man who carried the mail, ... he was our constant medium
of communication; and always stopped at our house to refresh
himself and horse, tell the news, and bring packets. He used
to wear a blue coat with yellow buttons, a scarlet waistcoat,
leathern small-clothes, blue yarn stockings, and a red wig and
cocked hat, which gave him a sort of military appearance.
He usually traveled in a sulky, but sometimes in a chaise, or
on horseback. . . . Mr. Martin also contrived to employ him-
self in knitting coarse yarn stockings while driving or rather
jogging along the road, or when seated on his saddle-bags on
horseback. He certainly did not ride post^ according to the
present [1821] meaning of that term."

[ 96 ]

American Nursery

Deprived like many other children of Newbery's peace-
ful biographies and stories, the little Mortons' lives were too
full of an intense daily interest to feel the lack of new litera-
ture of this sort. Tales of the campaigns told in letters to
friends and neighbors were reechoed in the ballads and songs
that formed part of the literary warfare waged by Whig or
Loyal partisans. Children of to-day sing so zestfully the
popular tunes of the moment, that it requires very little
imagination to pidure the schoolboy of Revolutionary days
shouting lustily verses from "The Battle of the Kegs," and
other rhymed stories of military incidents. Such a ballad was
"A Song for the Red Coats," written after the successful
campaign against Burgoyne, and beginning:

" Come unto me, ye heroes,
Whose hearts are true and bold.
Who value more your honor.
Than others do their gold !
Give ear unto my story.
And I the truth vi^ill tell.
Concerning many a soldier.
Who for his country fell."

Children, it has been said, are good haters. To the patriot
boy and girl, the opportunity to execrate Benedid Arnold
was found in these lines of a patriotic "ditty" concerning
the fate of Major Andre :

"When he was executed
He looked both meek and mild;
He looked upon the people,
And pleasantly he smiled.
It moved each eye to pity.
Caused every heart to bleed;
[97]

Forgotten Books of the

And every one wished him released —
And Arnold in his stead." *

Loyalist children had an almost equal supply of satirical
verse to fling back at neighbors' families, where in country
distrids some farms were still occupied by sympathizers
with Great Britain. A vigorous example of this style of war-
fare is quoted by Mr. Tyler in his "Literature of the Ameri-
can Revolution," and which, written in seventeen hundred
and seventy-six, is entitled " The Congress." It begins :

"These hardy knaves and stupid fools,
Some apish and pragmatic mules.
Some servile acquiescing tools, —
These, these compose the Congress ! " f

Or, again, such taunts over the general poverty of the land

and charader of the army as were made in a ballad called

"The Rebels" by a Loyalist officer:

" With loud peals of laughter, your sides,
Sirs, would crack.

To see General Convict and Colonel Shoe-black,
With their hunting-shirts and rifle-guns.
See Cobblers and quacks, rebel priests and the like.
Pettifoggers and barbers, with sword and with pike."

Those Loyalists who lived through this exciting period in
America's history bore their full share in the heavy personal
misfortunes of their political party. The hatred felt toward
such colonials as were true to the king has until recently
hardly subsided sufficiently to permit any sympathy with the
hardships they suffered. Driven from their homes, crowded
together in those places occupied by the English, or exiled

* Tyler, Literature of the American Re'volution^ vol. ii, p. 182. \ Ibid., p. 156.

L98]

American Nursery

to England or Halifax, these faithful subjeds had also to
undergo separation of families perhaps never again united.

Such a Loyalist was James Murray. Forced to leave his
daughter and grandchildren in Boston with a sister, he took
ship for Halifax to seek a living. There, amid the pressing
anxieties occasioned by this separation, he strove to reestab-
Hsh himself, and sent from time to time such articles as he
felt were necessary for their welfare. Thus he writes a mem-
orandum of articles sent in seventeen hundred and eighty by
"Mr. Bean's Cartel to Miss Betsy Murray: — viz: Everlast-
ing 4 yards; binding i piece, Nankeen 4^ yards. Of Ging-
ham 2 gown patterns; 2 pairs red shoes from A. E. C. for
boys, Jack and Ralph, a parcel — to Mrs. Brigden, 1 pair silk
shoes and some flowers — Arthur's Geographical Grammar,
— Locke on Education, — 5 children's books," etc. And in
return he is informed that "Charlotte goes to dancing and
writing school, improves apace and grows tall. Betsy and
Charles are much better but not well. The rest of the chil-
dren are in good health, desiring their duty to their Uncle and
Aunt Inman, and thanks for their cake and gloves."

To such families the end of the war meant either the ne-
cessity for making permanent their residence in the British
dominion, or of bearing both outspoken and silent scorn in
the new Republic.

For the Americans the peace of Yorktown brought joy,
but new beginnings had also to be made. Farms had been
laid waste, or had suffered from lack of men to cultivate them;
industries were almost at a standstill from want of material
and laborers. Still the people had the splendid compensa-

[99 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

tion of freedom with vidory, and men went sturdily back to
their homes to take up as far as possible their various occu-
pations.

An example of the way in which business undertaken be-
fore the war was rapidly resumed, or increased, is afforded
by the revival of prosperity for the booksellers in Boston,
New York, and Philadelphia. Renewals of orders to London
agents were speedily made, for the Americans still looked
to England for their intelledual needs. In Philadelphia — a
town of forty thousand inhabitants in seventeen hundred and
eighty-three — among the principal booksellers and printers
were Thomas Bradford, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Oswald, Mr.
Pritchard, — who had established a circulating library, —
Robert Aitkin, Mr. Liddon, Mr. Dunlap, Mr. Rice, William
and David Hall, Benjamin Bache, J. Crukshank, and Robert
Bell. Bell had undoubtedly the largest bookstore, but seems
not to have been altogether popular, if an allusion in " The
Philadelphiad " is to be credited. This "New Pidure of the
City" was anonymously published in seventeen hundred and
eighty-four, and described, among other well-known places,
Robert Bell's book-shop:

Bell's Book Store
Juft by St. Paul's where dry divines rehearfe,
Bell keeps his ftore for vending profe and verfe,
And books that's neither ... for no age nor clime,
Lame languid profe begot on hobb'ling rhyme.
Here authors meet who ne'er a fpring have got,
The poet, player, dodor, w^it and fot.
Smart politicians wrangling here are feen.
Condemning Jeffries or indulging fpleen.

[ 100 ]

t/

American Nursery

In 1776 Bell's facilities for printing had enabled him to pro-
duce an edition of " Little Goody Two-Shoes," which seems
likely to have been the only story-book printed during the
troubled years of the Revolution. Besides this, Bell printed
in 1777 "Aesop's Fables," as did also Robert Aitkin; and
J. Crukshank had issued during the war an A B C book,
written by the old schoolmaster, A. Benezet, who had drilled
many a Philadelphian in his letters. After the Revolution
Benjamin Bache apparently printed children's books in con-
siderable quantities, and orders were sent by other firms to
England for juvenile reading-matter.

New England also has records of the sale of these small
books in several towns soon after peace was established. John
Carter, "at Shakespeare's Head," in Providence, announced
by a broadside issued in November, seventeen hundred and
eighty-three, that he had a large assortment of stationers'
wares, and included in his list " Gilt Books for Children^'
among which were most of Newbery's publications. In Hart-
ford, Connedicut, where there had been a good press since
seventeen hundred and sixty-four, "The Children's Maga-
zine" was reprinted in seventeen hundred and eighty-nine.
Its preposterous titles are noteworthy, since it is probable
that this was the first attempt at periodical literature made
for young people in America. One number contains :

An easy Introdu6tion to Geography.
The Schoolboy addressed to the Editors.
Moral Tales continued.

Tale VIII. The Jealous Wife.
The Affectionate Sisters.

[ i°i ]

Forgotten Booh of the

Familiar Letters on Various Subjects, — Continued. . . .
Letter V from Phillis Flowerdale to Miss Truelove,
Letter VI from Miss Truelove to Phillis Flowerdale,

Poetry. — The Sweets of May.

The Cottage Retirement.

Advice to the Fair.

The Contented Cottager.

The Tear.

The Honest Heart.

The autograph of Eben Holt makes the contents of the maga-
zine ludicrous as subjeds of interest to a boy But having
nothing better, Eben most surely read it from cover to cover.

In Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Wells imported
the books read by the members of the various branches of
the Ravenel, Pinckney, Prioleau, Drayton, and other fami-
lies. Boston supplied the juvenile public largely through
E. Battelle and Thomas Andrews, who were the agents for
Isaiah Thomas, the American Newbery.

An account of the work of this remarkable printer of
Worcester, Massachusetts, has been given in Dr. Charles L.
Nichols's "Bibliography of Worcester." Thomas's publica-
tions ranked as among the very best of the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, and were sought by book-dealers in the
various states. At one time he had sixteen presses, seven of
which were in Worcester. He had also four bookstores in va-
rious towns of Massachusetts, one in Concord, New Hamp-
shire, one in Baltimore, and one in Albany.

In 1761, at the age of ten, Thomas had set up as his
"'Prentice's Token," a primer issued by A. Barclay in Corn-
hill, Boston, entitled "Tom Thumb's Play-Book, To Teach

[ 102 ]

American Nursery

Children their letters as soon as they can speak." Although
this primer was issued by Barclay, Thomas had already
served four years in a printer's office, for according to his
own statement he had been sent at the age of six to learn his
trade of Zechariah Fowle. Here, as 'prentice, he may have
helped to set up the stories of the " Holy Jesus " and the
" New Gift," and upon the cutting of their rude illustrations
perhaps took his first lessons in engraving. For we know
that by seventeen hundred and sixty-four he did fairly good
work upon the " Book of Knowledge " from the press of the
old printer. Upon the fly-leaf of a copy of this owned by the
American Antiquarian Society, founded by Thomas, is the
statement in the Worcester printer's handwriting, " Printed
and cuts engraved by I. Thomas then 13 years of age for
Z. Fowle when I. T. was his Apprentice: bad as the cuts
are executed, there was not at that time an artist in Boston
who could have done them much better. Some time before,
and soon after there were better engravers in Boston." These
cuts, especially the frontispiece representing a boy with a
spy-glass and globe, and with a sextant at his feet, are far
from poor work for a lad of thirteen. "The battered didion-
ary," says Dr. Nichols, "and the ink-stained Bible which
he found in Fowle's office started him in his career, and the
printing-press, together with an invincible determination to
excel in his calling, carried him onward, until he stands to-day
with Franklin and Baskerville, a type of the man who with
few educational advantages succeeds because he loves his
art for his art's sake."

In supplying to American children a home-made library,

[ 103 ]

\J

Forgotten Books of the

Thomas, although he did no really original work for children,
such as his English prototype, Newbery, had accomplished,
yet had a motive which was not altogether selfish and pecu-
niary. The prejudice against anything of British manufacture
was especially strong in the vicinity of Boston; and it was
an altogether natural expression of this spirit that impelled
the Worcester printer, as soon as his business was well
established, to begin to reprint the various little histories.
These reprints were all pirated from Newbery and his suc-
cessors, Newbery and Carnan ; but they compare most favor-
ably with them, and so far surpassed the work of any other
American printer of children's books (except possibly those
of Bache in Philadelphia) that his work demands more than
a passing mention.

Beginning, like most printers, with the produdion of a
primer in seventeen hundred and eighty-four, by seventeen
hundred and eighty-six Thomas was well under way in his
work for children. In that year at least eleven little books
bore his imprint and were sent to his Boston agents to be
sold. In the "Worcester Magazine " for June, 1786, Thomas
addressed an "Advertisement to Booksellers," as follows:
"A large assortment of all the various sizes of Children's
Books, known by the name of Newbery's Little Books for
Children, are now republished by I. Thomas in Worcester,
Massachusetts. They are all done excellently in his English
Method, and it is supposed the paper, printing, cuts, and
binding are in every way equal to those imported from Eng-
land. As the Subscriber has been at great expense to carry
on this particular branch of Printing extensively, he hopes

[ 104 ]

American Nursery

to meet with encouragement from the Booksellers in the
United States."

Evidently he did meet with great encouragement from
parents as well as booksellers; and it is suspeded that the
best printed books bearing imprints of other booksellers were
often printed in Worcester and bound according to the taste
and facilities of the dealer. That this pradice of reprinting
the title-page and rebinding was customary, a letter from
Franklin to his nephew in Boston gives indisputable evidence :

Philada. Nov. 26, 1788.

Loving Cousin:

I have lately set up one of my grand-children, Benja. F.
Bache, as a Printer here, and he has printed fome very pretty
little Books for Children. By the Sloop Friendlhip, Capt. Stut-
fon, I have fent a Box addrefs'd to you, containing 150 of
each volume, in Sheets, which I requeft you would, according
to your wonted Goodnefs, put in a way of being disposed of
for the Benefit of my dear Sister. They are fold here, bound
in marbled Paper at 1 S. a Volume ; but I ftiould fuppofe it
beft, if it may be done, to fell the whole to some Stationer,
at once, unbound as they are; in which cafe I imagine that
half a Dollar a Quire may be thought a reafonable Price,
allowing ufual Credit if necefsary.

My Love to your Family, & believe me ever,

Your afFedionate Uncle

B. Franklin.

JoNA. Williams, Esq.

Franklin's reference to the Philadelphia manner of binding
toy-books in marbled paper indicates that this home-made

[ ^05]

\l Forgotten Books of the

produd was already displacing the attradive imported gilt
embossed and parti-colored covers used by Thomas, who
seems never to have adopted this ugly dress for his juve-
nile publications. As the demand for his wares increased,
' Thomas set up other volumes from Newbery's stock, until
by seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he had reproduced
pradically every item for his increasing trade. It was his cus-
tom to include in many of these books a Catalogue of the
various tales for sale, and in "The Pidure Exhibition" we
find a list of fifty-two stories to be sold for prices varying from
six pence to a shilling and a half

These books may be divided into several classes, all imi-
tations of the English adult literature then in vogue. The
alphabets and primers, such as the "Little Lottery Book,"
*' Christmas Box," and "Tom Thumb's Play-thing," are out-
side the limits of the present subjed, since they were written
primarily to instrud; and while it is often difficult to draw
the line where amusement begins and instrudion sinks to the
background, the title-pages can usually be taken as evidence
at least of the author's intention. These other books, however,
fall naturally under the heads of jest and puzzle books, nature
stories, fables, rhymes, novels, and stories — all prototypes of
the nursery literature of to-day.

The jest and joke books published by Thomas numbered,
as far as is known to the writer, only five. Their titles seem to
offer a feast of fun unfulfilled by the contents. "Be Merry &
Wise, or the Cream of the Jests and the Marrow of Maxims,"
by Tommy Trapwit, contained concentrated extrads of wis-
dom, and jokes such as were current among adults. The chil-

[ '06 ]

J

BOOKS, for Matters and MilTes of
all AgeSf iKibkh nvill make them ^wtfie^
and happy i printed and fold by Isaiah
Thomas, at his Bookftore;« Worcefter,
Ma(fachufettSy all ornamented ivith Cuts,
and prettily bound.

The follo<wtng are all price four Cents each,
or four fedei-al copper Sy\\z,

NURSE TRUELOVE's Chriflmas
Box.

The FATHER'S GIFT j or the Way to
be wife.

The BROTHER'S GIFT j or the naugh-
ty Girl reformed.

The SISTER'S GIFT } or the naughty
•Boy reformed.

The liftte PUZZLING CAP j or a Col-

• le^fOn of pretty Riddles.

The ROYAL ALPHABET ; or Child's
beft Inftruftor ; to which is added, the
HKlory of a little Boy found undor a
Haycock.

The Death and Burial of COCK ROB-
BIN ; with the tragical Death of A,
Apple Pye.

J. page from a Catalogue of Children's Books
printed by Isaiah Thomas

American Nursery

dren for whom they were meant were accustomed to nothing
more facetious than the following jest : " An arch wag said,
Baylors were like Woodcocks for they got their substance by
their long bills." Perhaps they understood also the point in
this: "A certain lord had a termagant wife, and at the same
time a chaplain that was a tolerable poet, whom his lordship
desired to write a copy of verses upon a shrew. I can't imagine,
said the chaplain, why your lordship should want a copy, who
has so good an original." Other witticisms are not quotable.
Conundrums played their part in the eighteenth century
juvenile life, much as they do to-day. These were to be found
in "A Bag of Nuts ready Cracked," and " The Big and Little
Puzzling Caps." "Food for the Mind" was the solemn title
of another riddle-book, whose conundrums are very serious
matters. Riddle XIV of the " Puzzling Cap" is typical of its
rather dreary contents :

"There was a man bespoke a thing,
Which when the maker home did bring,
This same maker did refuse it;
He who bespoke it did not use it
And he who had it did not know
Whether he had it, yea or no."

lis was a nut also "ready cracked" by the answer repro-
luced in the illustration.
Nature stories were attempted under the titles of "The
atural History of Four Footed Beasts," " Jacky Dandy's
:hght; or the History of Birds and Beasts in Verse and
^rose," "Mr. Telltruth's Natural History of Birds," and
^' Tommy Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." All these were

[ 107 ]

7

Forgotten Books of the

written after Oliver Goldsmith's "Animated Nature" had
won its way into great popularity. As a consequence of the
favorable Impression this book had made, Goldsmith is sup-
posed to have been asked by Newbery to try his hand upon
a juvenile natural history.

Possibly it was as a result of Newbery's request that we
have the anonymous "Jacky Dandy's Delight" and "Tommy
Trip's History of Beasts and Birds." The former appears
to be a good example of Goldsmith's facility for amusing
himself when doing hack-work for Newbery. How like
Goldsmith's manner is this description of a monkey :

"The monkey mischievous
Like a naughty boy looks;
Who plagues all his friends,
And regards not his books.

"He is an a6tive, pert, busy animal, who mimicks human
adions so well that some think him rational. The Indians say,
he can speak if he pleases, but will not lest he should be set to
work. Herein he resembles those naughty little boys who will
not learn A, lest they should be obliged to learn B, too. He is
a native of warm countries, and a useless beast in this part
of the world; so I shall leave him to speak of another that
is more bulky, and comes from cold countries : I mean the
Bear."

To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls
seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be
found in the children's books of the period, if we except the
f' Jests " and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on

[ i°8 ]

American Nursery

the title-pages. The title of "The Pidure Exhibition; contain-
ing the Original Drawings of Eighteen Disciples. . . . Pub-
lished under the Inspection of Mr. Peter Paul Rubens, . . ."
is evidently one of Newbery's efforts to be facetious. To the
author, the pretence that the pidures were by "Disciples of
I Peter Paul Rubens" evidently conveyed the same idea of wit
that "Punch" has at times represented to others of a later
century.

Fables have always been a mine of interest to young folks,
and were interspersed liberally with all moral tales, but "En-
tertaining Fables" bears upon its title-page a suggestion that
the children's old friend, "Aesop," appeared in a new dress.

Another series of books contained the much abridged
novels written for the older people. " Peregrine Pickle " and
"Roderick Random" were both reprinted by Isaiah Thomas
as early as seventeen hundred and eighty-eight. These tales
of adventure seem to have had their small refledions in such
stories as " The Adventures of a Pincushion," and " The
Adventures of a Peg-top," by Dorothy Kilner, an English-
woman. Mention has already been made of "Pamela" and
"Clarissa" in condensed form. These were books of over
two hundred pages ; but most of the toy-books were limited
to less than one hundred. A remarkable instance of the pith
of a long plot put into small compass was " The History of
Tom Jones." A dog-eared copy of such an edition of "Tom
Jones" is still in existence. Its flowery Dutch binding covers
only thirty-one pages, four inches long, with a frontispiece
and five wood-cut illustrations. In so small a space no detailed
account of the life of the hero is to be expeded; nevertheless,

[ 109 ]

J

Forgotten Books of the

the first paragraph introduces Tom as no ordinary foundhng.
Mr. AUworthy finds the infant in his bed one evening and
rings up his housekeeper Mrs. Deborah Wilkins. "She being
astrid observer of decency was exceedingly alarmed, on enter-
ing her master's room, to find him undressed, but more so on
his presenting her with the child, which he ordered imme-
diately to be taken care of" The story proceeds — with little
punduation to enable the reader to take breath — to tell how
the infant is named, and how Mr. Allworthy's nephew, Mas-
ter Bilfil, is also brought under that generous and respedable
gentleman's protedion. Tommy turned out "good," as Mr.
AUworthy had hoped when he assumed charge of him; and
therefore eventually inherited riches and gained the hand of
Miss Sophia Western, with whom he rode about the country
in their " Coach and Six."

Of the stories in this juvenile library, the names, at least,
of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody
Two-Shoes" have been handed down through various gen-
erations. One hundred years ago every child knew that " Little
King Pippin" attained his glorious end by attention to his
books in the beginning of his career ; that " Giles Gingerbread "
first learned his alphabet from gingerbread letters, and later
obtained the patronage of a fine gentleman by spelling " apple-
pye " corredly. Thus did his digestion prove of material assist-
ance in mental gymnastics.

But the nursery favorite was undoubtedly "Margery, or
Little Goody Two-Shoes." She was introduced to the reader in
her "state of rags and care," from which she gradually emerged
in the chapters entitled, "How and about Little Margery and

[ "°]

30 The Puzzliiig-Cap.

A COFFIN.

Illustration of Riddle XIF
in ''The Puzzling-Cap"

y

American Nursery

her Brother;" "How Little Margery obtained the name of
Goody Two-Shoes;" "How she became a Tutoress" to the
farmers' families in which she taught spelling by a game ; and
how they all sang the " Cuz's Chorus " in the intervals between
the spelhng lesson and the composition of sentences like this:
" I pray God to bless the whole country, and all our friends
and all our enemies." Like the usual heroine of eighteenth
century fidion, she married a title, and as Lady Jones was the
Lady Bountiful of the distrid. From these tales it is clear that ^'
piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been suc-
ceeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still
pushed into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly
translated the ethical sign-boards along the progress of the
tale into Biblical admonitions.

All the books were didadic in the extreme. A series of four, ,
called " The Mother's," " Father's," " Sister's," and " Brother's i
Gifts," is a good example of this didadic method of story- '
telling. " The Father's Gift " has lessons in speUing preceded
by these lines :

" Let me not join with those in Play,

Who fibs and stories tell,

I with my Book will spend the Day,

And not with such Boys dwell.

For one rude Boy will spoil a score

As I have oft been told ;

And one bad sheep, in Time, is sure

To injure all the Fold."

"The Mother's Gift" was confined largely to the same in-
strudive field, but had one or two stories which conformed
to the sentiment of the author of " The Adventures of a Pin-

[ III ]

Forgotten Books of the

cushion," who stated her motive to be "That of providing
the young reader with a few pages which should be innocent
of corrupting if they did not amuse."

"The Brother's" and "Sister's Gifts," however, adopt
a different plan of instrudion. In "The Brother's Gift" we
find a brother solicitous concerning his sister's education:
" Miss Kitty Bland was apt, forward and headstrong ; and
had it not been for the care of her brother, Billy, would have
probably witnessed all the disadvantages of a modern edu-
cation"! Upon Kitty's return from boarding-school, "she
could neither read, nor sew, nor write grammatically, dancing
stiff and awkward, her musick inelegant, and everything she
did bordered strongly on affedation." Here was a large field
for reformation for Billy to effe6i:. He had no doubts as to
what method to pursue. She was desired to make him twelve
shirts, and when the first one was presented to him, "he was
astonished to find her lacking in so useful a female accom-
plishment." Exemplary conversation produced such results
that the rest of the garments were satisfadory to the critical
Billy, who, "as a mark of approbation made her a present
of a fine pair of stays."

"The Sister's Gift" presents an opposite pidure. In this
case it is Master Courtley who, a "youth of Folly and Idle-
ness," received large doses of advice from his sister. This
counsel was so efficient with Billy's sensitive nature that
before the story ends, "he wept bitterly, and declared to his
sister that she had painted the enormity of his vices in such
striking colors, that they shocked him in the greatest degree;
and promised ever after to be as remarkable for generosity,

[ "2]

American Nursery

compassion and every other virtue as he had hitherto been
for cruelty, forwardness and ill-nature." Virtue in this instance
was its own reward, as Billy received no gift in recognition
of his changed habits.

To the modern lover of children such tales seem strangely
ill-suited to the childish mind, losing, as they do, all tender-
ness in the effort of the authors (so often confided to parents
in the preface) "to express their sentiments with propriety."
Such criticism of the style and matter of these early attempts
to write for little people was probably not made by either
infant or adult readers of that old-time public. The children
read what was placed before them as intelledual food, plain
and sweetened, as unconcernedly as they ate the food upon
their plates at meal-time. That their own language was the
formal one of the period is shown by such letters as the
following one from Mary Wilder, who had just read " The
Mother's Gift:"

Lancaster, Oftober 9th, 1789.

HoND. Madm:

Your goodness to me I cannot express. My mind is con-
tinually crowded with your kindness. If your goodness could
be rewarded, I hope God will repay you. If you remember,
some time ago I read a story in "The Mother's Gift," but I
hope I shall never resemble Miss Gonson. O Dear! What
a thing it is to disobey one's parents. I have one of the best
Masters. He gave me a sheet of paper this morning. I hope
Uncle Flagg will come up. I am quite tired of looking for
Betsy, but I hope she will come. When school is done
keeping, I shall come to Sudbury. What a fine book Mrs.

[ 113 ]

^i

Forgotten Books of the

Chapone's Letters is : My time grows short and I must make
my letter short.

Your dutiful daughter,

P. W.

Nursery rhymes and jingles of these present days have all de-
scended from song-books of the eighteenth century, entitled
"Little Robin Red Breast," "A Poetical Description of Song
Birds," "Tommy Thumb's Song-Book," and the famous
"Melodies of Mother Goose," whose name is happily not yet
relegated to the days of long ago. Two extrads from the
"Poetical Description of Song Birds" will be sufficient to
show how foreign to the birds familiar to American children
were the descriptions:

The Bullfinch
This lovely bird is charming to the sight :
The back is glossy blue, the belly white,
A jetty black shines on his neck and head;
His breast is flaming with a beauteous red.

The Twite
Green like the Linnet it appears to sight,
And like the Linnet sings from morn till night.
A reddish spot upon his rump is seen,
Short is his bill, his feathers always clean:
When other singing birds are dull or nice,
To sing again the merry Twites entice.

Refledions of the prevailing taste of grown people for bio-
graphy are suggested in three little books, of two of which the
author was Mrs. Pilkington, who had already written several
successful stories for young ladies. Her "Biography for Girls"

["4]

y

American Nursery

contains various novelettes, in each of which the heroine lives
the conventional life and dies the conventional death of the
period, and receives a laudatory epitaph. They are remark-
able only as being devoid of any interest. Her "Biography for
Boys" does not appear to have attained the same popularity
as that for girls. A third book, " The Juvenile Biographers,"
containing the "Lives of Little Masters and Misses," is repre-
sentative of the changes made in many books by the printer
to cater to that pride in the young Republic so manifest in all
local literary produdions. In one biography we note a Repre-
sentative to the Massachusetts Assembly:

"As Master Sammy had always been a very sober and
careful child, and very attentive to his Books, it is no wonder
that he proved, in the End, to be an excellent Scholar.

"Accordingly, when he had reached the age of fourteen,
Mr. William Goodall, a wealthy merchant in the city of Bos-
ton, took him into his counting house, in order to bring him
up in the merchantile Way, and thereby make his Fortune.
P " This was a sad Stroke to his poor Sister Nancy, who hav-
ing lost both her Papa and Mama, was now likely to lose her
Brother likewise; but Sammy did all he could to appease her,
and assured her, that he would spend all his leisure Time
with her. This he most pundually performed, and never were
Brother and Sister as happy in each other's company as they
were.

" Mr. William Goodall was highly satisfied with Sammy's
Behaviour, and dying much about the Time that Miss Nancy
was married to the Gentleman, he left all his business to
Sammy, together with a large Capital to carry it on. So much

["5]

^' 4i

Forgotten Books of the

is Mr. Careful esteemed (for we must now no longer call him
Master Sammy) that he was chosen in the late General Elec-
tion, Representative in the General Court, for one of the first
SP Towns in New England, without the least expense to himself
N^ We here see what are the EfFeds of Good Behaviour."

1 This adaptation of the English tale to the surroundings of
' the American child is often found in Thomas's reprints, and
naturally, owing to his enthusiasm over the recent change in
the form of government, is made wholly by political references.
Therefore while the lark and the linnet still sang in songs and
the cowslips were scattered throughout the nature descriptions.
Master Friendly no longer rode in the Lord Mayor's coach,
but was seated as a Congressman in a sedan chair, "and he
looked — he looked — I do not know what he looked like, but
everybody was in love with him." The engraver as well as
the biographer of the recently made Representative was evi-
dently at a loss as to his appearance, as the four dots indi-
cating the young gentleman's features give but a blank look
perhaps intended to denote amazement at his eledion.

The illustrations of Thomas's toy reprints should not be
overlooked. The Worcester printer seems to have rewritten
the "Introdudion" to "Goody Two-Shoes," and at the end
he affixed a "Letter from the Printer which he desires may
be inserted.

Sir : I have come with your copy, and so you may return it
to the Vatican, if you please; and pray tell Mr. Angelo to
brush up his cuts; that in the next edition they may give us
a good impression."

[ii6]

Goody Tivcjhocs,

American Nursery

This apology for the charader of the illustrations serves as an
introdudion to a most interesting subje6t of conjedure as to
the making of the cuts, and particularly as to the engraving
of the frontispiece in "Goody Two-Shoes."

It will be remembered that Isaiah Thomas in his adver-
tisement to booksellers had expressly mentioned the great
expense he had incurred in bringing out the juvenile books
in "the English method." But Mr. Edwin Pearson, in his
delightful discussion of "Banbury Chap-Books," has also
stated that the wood-cut frontispiece in the first American
edition of "Goody Two-Shoes," printed by Thomas, was
engraved by Bewick, the famous English illustrator. A com-
parison of the reprodudion of the Bewick engraving in
Mr. Pearson's book with the frontispiece in Thomas's edi-
tion shows so much difference that it is a matter of regret
that Mr. Pearson withheld his authority for attributing to
Bewick the representation of Margery Two-Shoes. Besides
the inference from Thomas's letter that the poor cuts would
be improved before another edition should be printed, there
are several points to be observed in comparing the cuts. In
the first place, the execution in the Thomas cut suggests
a different hand in the use of the tools; again, the reversed
position of the figure of "Goody" indicates a copy of the
English original. Also the expression of Thomas's heroine,
although slightly mincing, is less distressed than the British
dame's, to say nothing of the variation in the fashion of the
gowns. And such details as the replacing of the English
landscape by the spire of a meeting-house in the distance
seem to confirm the impression that the drawing was made

[ 1^7 ]

Forgotten Booh

after, but not by Bewick. In the cuts scattered throughout
the text the same difference in execution and portrayal of the
little schoolmistress is noticeable. Margery, upon her rounds
to teach the farmers' children to spell such words as "plumb-
pudding" "(and who can suppose a better?)," presents her
full face in the Newbery edition, and but a three-quarter view
to her American admirers.

These fads, together with the knowledge that Isaiah
Thomas was a fair engraver himself, make it possible that
his apology for the first impression of the tiny classic was
for his own engraving, which he thought to better.

Thomas not only copied and pirated Newbery's juvenile
histories, but he adopted his method of advertising by inser-
tions in the text of these tales. For example, in "The Travels
of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself," the little reader
was told, "If you learn this Book well and are good, you
can buy a larger and more complete History of Mr. Crusoe
at your friend the Bookseller's in Worcester near the Court
House." In "The Mother's Gift," there is described well-
brought-up Miss Nugent displaying to ill-bred Miss Jones,
" a pretty large coUedion of books neatly bound and nicely
kept," all to be had of Mr. Thomas; and again Mr. Careful,
in "Virtue and Vice," "presented at Christmas time to the
sons and daughters of his friends, little Gilt Books to read,
such as are sold at Mr. Thomas' near the Court House in
Worcester."

Thomas and his son continued to send out these toy-
books until their gay bindings faded away before the nov-
elty of the printed paper covers of the nineteenth century.

[ "8]

1

CHAPTER V

1790-1800

By Washington

Great deeds were done.

'The Neixj England Primer y

New York, 1794

Line after line their wisdom flows
Page after page repeating.

T. G. Hake

(/

CHAPTER V

1790-1800

The Child and his Book at the End of the Century

A NY attempt to trace the slow development of the
/"V American child's story of the nineteenth century
must inevitably be made through the school-books written
during the previous one. Before this, English books had
been adapted to the American trade. But now the continued /
interest in education produced text-books pervaded with '
the American spirit. They cannot, therefore, be ignored as
sporadically in the springtime of the young Republic, they,
like crocuses, thrust forward in the different states their blue
and yellow covers.

Next to clergymen, schoolmasters received the veneration
of the people, for learning and godliness went hand in hand.
It was the schoolmaster who reinforced the efforts of the par-
ents to make good Americans of the young folks, by compil-
ing text-books which outsold the English ones hitherto used.
In the new editions of the old "New England Primer," laud-
atory verse about General Washington replaced the alphabet

rhyme :

"Whales in the Sea
God's Voice obey."

Proud parents thereafter heard their infants lisp :

"By Washington
Great deeds were done."

For older pupils Noah Webster's speller almost superseded
Dilworth's, and his "Little Readers' Assistant" became the

[ i^i ]

(/

Forgotten Books of the

First Reader of many children. Webster as schoolmaster in
a country district prepared this book for his own scholars.
It was printed in Hartford in seventeen hundred and ninety,
and contained a list of subjeds suitable for farmers' children:

I. A number of Stories mostly taken from the history of
America, and adorned with Cuts.
II. Rudiments of English Grammar.

III. The Federal Catechism, being a short and easy explana-
tion of the Constitution of the United States.

IV. General principles of Government and Commerce.

V. Farmers' Catechism containing plain rules of husbandry.

Bennington, Vermont, contributed in "The Little Scholar's

Pretty Pocket Companion in Rhyme and Verse," this indired

allusion to political affairs:

" *T was a toy of royalty, of late almost forgot,
'T is said she represented France
On English Monarchies arms,
But lately broke his chains by chance
And widely spread alarms."

But the most naive attempt to inculcate patriotism together
with a lesson in obedience is found in " The Child's Instruc-
tor," published about seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and
written by a Philadelphian. Philadelphia had become the
residence of the President — a fad that may account for one
of the stories in this book about an infant prodigy called
Billy. " The child at five years of age was always good and
obedient, and prone to make such a remark as, ' If you would
be wise you must always attend to your vowels and conso-
nants.' When General Washington came to town Billy's

[ 122 ]

i/

American Nursery

mama asked him to say a speech to the ladies, and he began,
'Americans ! place constantly before your eyes, the deplorable
scenes of your servitude, and the enchanting pidure of your
deliverance. Begin with the infant in his cradle ; let the first
word he lisps be Washington' The ladies were all delighted
to hear Billy speak so well. One said he should be a lawyer,
and another said he should be President of the United States.
But Billy said he could not be either unless his mama gave
him leave." "^

Another Philadelphian attempted to embody political sen-
timent in "A Tale — The Political Balance; or. The Fate
of Britain and America Compared." This juvenile has long
since disappeared, but it was advertised by its printer, Francis
Bailey, in seventeen hundred and ninety-two, together with
"The History of the Little Boy found under a Haycock," and
several other books for children. One year later a "History
of the American Revolution" for children was also printed in
Philadelphia for the generation who had been born since the
war had ended. This was written in the Biblical phraseology
introduced and made popular by Franklin in his famous
"Parable against Persecution."

This enthusiasm over the results of the late war and scorn
for the defeated English sometimes indeed cropped out in the
Newbery reprints. An edition (i 796) of "Goody Two-Shoes"
contains this footnote in reference to the tyranny of the Eng-
lish landlord over Goody's father:

''Such is the state of things in Britain. AMERICANS prize
your liberty., guard your rights and he happy'' f

*Mi88 Hewins, Atlantic Monthly^ vol. Ixi, p. 112. f Brynberg. Wilmington, 1796.

[ "3 ]

Forgotten Books of the

In this last decade of the century that had made a nation
of the colonial commonwealths, the prosperity of the coun-
try enabled more printers to pirate the generally approved
Newbery library. Samuel Hall in Boston, with a shop near
the court-house, printed them all, using at times the dainty
covers of flowery Dutch or gilt paper, and again another
style of binding occasionally used in England. "The Death
and Burial of Cock Robin," for instance, has a quaint red
and gilt cover, which according to Mr. Charles Welsh was
made by stamping paper with dies originally used for print-
ing old German playing-cards. He says: "To find such a
cover can only be accounted for by the innocence of the
purchasers as to the appearance of his Satanic Majesty's
pidure cards and hence [they] did not recognize them."
In one corner of the book cover is impressed the single
word "Miinch," which stamps this paper as "made in Ger-
many." Hall himself was probably as ignorant of the origi-
nal purpose of the pidure as the unsuspeding purchaser,
who would cheerfully have burned it rather than see such an
instrument of the Devil in the hands of its owner, little Sally
Barnes.

Of Samuel Hall's reprints from the popular English pub-
lications, "Little Truths" was in all probabiHty one of the
most salable. So few books contained any information about
America that one of these two volumes may be regarded as
of particular interest to the young generation of his time.
The author of "Little Truths," William Darton, a Quaker
publisher in London, does not divulge from what source he
gleaned his knowledge. His information concerning Ameri-

[ 1^4]

FROSTTISPIliCE

S^ Walter Raleigk andicuixLaxi..

American Nursery

cans is of that misty description that confuses Indians ("na-
tive Americans") with people of Spanish and English de-
scent. The usual "Introdudion" states that "The author has
chose a method after the manner of conversations between
children and their instructor," and the dialogue is indicated by-
printing the children's observations in italics. These volumes
were issued for twenty years after they were introduced by
Hall, and those of an eighteen hundred Philadelphia edition
are bound separately. Number one is in blue paper with cop-
per-plate pidures on both covers. This volume gives informa-
tion regarding farm produce, live-stock, and about birds quite
unfamiliar to American children. But the second volume, in
white covers, introduces the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and
his pipe-smoking incident, made very realistic in the copper-
plate frontispiece. The children's question, " Did Sir Walter
Raleigh find out the virtues of tobacco?" affords an excellent
opportunity for a discourse upon smoking and snuff-taking.
These remarks conclude with this prosaic statement: "Hun-
dreds of sensible people have fell into these customs from
example ; and, when they would have left them off, found it
a very great difficulty." Next comes a lesson upon the growth
of tobacco leading up to a short account of the slave-trade,
already a subjed of differing opinion in the United States,
as well as in England. Of further interest to small Americans
was a short tale of the discovery of this country. Perhaps to
most children their first book-knowledge of this event came
from the pages of " Little Truths."

Hall's books were not all so proper for the amusement
of young folks. A perusal of " Capt. Gulliver's Adventures "

[ "S ]

Forgotten Books of the

leaves one in no doubt as to the reason that so many of the
old-fashioned mothers preferred to keep such tales out of
children's hands, and to read over and over again the adven-
tures of the Pilgrim, Christian. Mrs. Eliza Drinker of Phila-
delphia in seventeen hundred and ninety-six was re-reading
for the third time "Pilgrim's Progress," which she considered
a "generally approved book," although then "ridiculed by
many." The "Legacy to Children" Mrs. Drinker also read
aloud to her grandchildren, having herself "wept over it
between fifty and sixty years ago, as did my grandchil-
dren when it was read to them. She, Hannah Hill, died in
1714, and ye book was printed in 1714 by Andrew Brad-
ford."

But Mrs. Drinker's grandchildren had another book very
different from the pious sayings of the dying Hannah. This
contained "64 little stories and as many pidures drawn and
written by Nancy Skyrin," the mother of some of the chil-
dren. P. Widdows had bound the stories in gilt paper, and
it was so prized by the family that the grandmother thought
the fad of the recovery of the book, after it was supposed to
have been irretrievably lost, worthy of an entry in her jour-
nal. Careful inquiry among the descendants of Mrs. Drinker
has led to the belief that these stories were read out of exist-
ence many years ago. What they were about can only be
imagined. Perhaps they were incidents in the lives of the same
children who cried over the pathetic morbidity of Hannah's
dying words; or possibly rhymes and verses about school
and play hours of little Philadelphians; with pidures show-
ing bait-the-bear, trap-ball, and other sports of days long since

[ "6]

Fc?cpt Bali

<//

American Nursery

passed away, as well as " I Spie Hi " and marbles, familiar still
to boys and girls.

From the fad that these stories were written for the au-
thor's own children, another book, composed less than a cen-
tury before, is brought to mind. Comparison of even the mea-
gre description of Mrs. Skyrin's book with Cotton Mather's
professed purpose in "Good Lessons" shows the stride made
in children's literature to be a long one. Yet a quarter of
a century was still to run before any other original writing
was done in America for children's benefit.

Nobody else in America, indeed, seems to have considered
the question of writing for nursery inmates. Mrs. Barbauld's
" Easy Lessons for Children from Two to Five Years old," writ-
ten for English children, were considered perfedly adapted
to gaining knowledge and perhaps amusement. It is true that
when Benjamin Bache of Philadelphia issued "Easy Les-
sons," he added this note : " Some alterations were thought
necessary to be made in this . . . American edition, to make it
agree with the original design of rendering instrudion easy
and useful. . . . The climate and the familiar objeds of this
country suggested these alterations." Except for the substitu-
tion of such words as "Wheat" for "Corn," the intentions of
the editor seem hardly to have had result, except by way of
advertisement; and are of interest merely because they repre-
sent one step further in the diredion of Americanizing the
story-book literature.

All Mrs. Barbauld's books were considered excellent for
young children. As a "Dissenter," she gained in the esteem
of the people of the northern states, and her books were im-

[ '^7]

J^

Forgotten Books of the

ported as well as reprinted here. Perhaps she was best known

to our grandparents as the joint author, with Dr. Aikin, of

" Evenings at Home," and of " Hymns in Prose and Verse."

Both were read extensively for fifty years. The "Hymns" had

an enormous circulation, and were often full of fine rhythm

and undeserving of the entire negled into which they have

I fallen. Of course, as the fashion changed in the "approved"

'; type of story, Mrs. Barbauld suffered criticism. "Mrs. and Miss

Edgeworth in their ' Pradical Education ' insisted that evil

lurked behind the phrase in 'Easy Lessons,' 'Charles wants

his dinner' because of the implication 'that Charles must

; have whatever he desires,' and to say 'the sun has gone to bed,'

is to incur the odium of telling the child a falsehood." ^

But the manner in which these critics of Mrs. Barbauld
thought they had improved upon her method of story-telling
I is a tale belonging to another chapter. When Miss Edge-
I worth's wave of popularity reached this country Mrs. Bar-
! bauld's ideas still flourished as very acceptable to parents.
, A contemporary and rival writer for the English nursery
was Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. Her works for little children were
1 also credited with much information they did not give. After
the publication of Mrs. Barbauld's " Easy Lessons " (which
was the result of her own teaching of an adopted child), Mrs.
Trimmer's friends urged her to make a like use of the les-
sons given to her family of six, and accordingly she pub-
lished in seventeen hundred and seventy-eight an "Easy
Introdudion into the Knowledge of Nature," and followed it
some years after its initial success by " Fabulous Histories,'*

* Miss Repplier, Atlantic Monthlyy vol. Ivii, p. 509.

[ 128]

»y

American Nursery

afterwards known as the " History of the Robins." Although
Mrs. Trimmer represents more nearly than Mrs. Barbauld
the religious emotionalism pervading Sunday-school libraries,
— in which she was deeply interested, — the work of both
these ladies exemplifies the transitional stage to that Labor-
in-Play school of writing which was to invade the American
nursery in the next century when Parley and Abbott throve
upon the proceeds of the educational narrative.

Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Thomas Day's " Sanford
and Merton" occupied the place in the estimation of boys
that the doings of Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's works
held in the opinion of the younger members of the nursery.
Edition followed upon edition of the adventures of the famous
island hero. In Philadelphia, in seventeen hundred and ninety-
three, William Young issued what purported to be the sixth
edition. In New York many thousands of copies were sold,
and in eighteen hundred and twenty-four we find a Spanish
translation attesting its widespread favor. In seventeen hun-
dred and ninety-four, Isaiah Thomas placed the surprising
adventures of the mariner as on the "Coast of America, lying
near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque."

Parents also thought very highly of Thomas Day's "Chil-
dren's Miscellany" and "Sanford and Merton." To read this
last book is to believe it to be possibly in the style that
Dr. Samuel Johnson had in mind when he remarked to
Mrs. Piozzi that "the parents buy the books but the children
never read them." Yet the testimony of publishers of the past ';
is that " Sanford and Merton" had a large and continuous sale ■
for many years. " ' Sanford and Merton,' " writes Mr. Julian *

[ 129 ]

I

J

Forgotten Books of the

Hawthorne, "ran 'Robinson Crusoe' harder than any other
work of the eighteenth century particularly written for chil-
dren." "The work," he adds, "is quaint and interesting rather
to the historian than to the general, especially the child, reader.
Children would hardly appreciate so amazingly ancient a form
of conversation as that which resulted from Tommy [the bad
boy of the story] losing a ball and ordering a ragged boy to
pick it up :

"'Bring my ball diredly!'

"'I don't choose it,' said the boy.

"'Sirrah,' cried Tommy, 'if I come to you I will make
you choose it.'

"'Perhaps not, my pretty master,' said the boy.

"'You little rascal,' said Tommy, who now began to be
very angry, ' if I come over the hedge I will thrash you within
an inch of your life.' "

The gist of Tommy's threat has often been couched in
modern language by grandsons of the boys from whom the
Socratic Mr. Day wrote to expose the evils of too luxurious
an education. His method of compilation of fads to be taught
may best be given in the words of his Preface : "All who have
been conversant in the education of very young children,
have complained of the total want of proper books to be put
in their hands, while they are taught the elements of read-
ing. . . . The least exceptional passages of books that I could
find for the purpose were 'Plutarch's Lives' and Xenophon's
' History of the Institution of Cyrus,' in Enghsh translation;
with some part of' Robinson Crusoe,' and a few passages from
Mr. Brooke's 'Fool of Quality.' ... I therefore resolved . . .

[ 130 ]

American Nursery

not only to colled all such stories as I thought adapted to
the faculties of children, but to conned these by continued
narration. ... As to the histories themselves, I have used the
most unbounded licence. ... As to the language, I have en-
deavored to throw into it a greater degree of elegance and
ornament than is usually to be met with in such compositions;
preserving at the same time a sufficient degree of simplicity
to make it intelligible to very young children, and rather
choosing to be diffuse than obscure." With these objeds in
mind, we can understand small Tommy's embellishment of
his demand for the return of his ball by addressing the ragged
urchin as "Sirrah."

Mr. Day's "Children's Miscellany" contained a number of
stories, of which one, "The History of Little Jack," about
a lost child who was adopted by a goat, was popular enough
to be afterwards published separately. It is a debatable ques-
tion as to whether the parents or the children figuring in this
"Miscellany" were the more artificial. "Proud and unfeeling
girl," says one tender mother to her little daughter who had
bestowed half her pin money upon a poor family, — "proud
and unfeeling girl, to prefer vain and trifling ornaments to
the delight of relieving the sick and miserable ! Retire from
my presence ! Take away with you trinket and nosegay, and
receive from them all the comforts they are able to bestow!"
Why Mr. Day's stories met with such unqualified praise at
the time they were published, this example of canting rubbish
does not reveal. In real life parents certainly did retain some
of their substance for their own pleasure ; why, therefore, dis-
cipline a child for following the same inclination?

[ 131 ]

J Forgotten Books of the

In contrast to Mr. Day's method, Mrs. Barbauld's plan of
simple conversation in words of one, two, and three sylla-
; bles seems modern. Both aimed to afford pleasure to children
" learning the elements of reading." Where Mrs. Barbauld
probably judged truly the capacity of young children in the
dialogues with the little Charles of "Easy Lessons," Mr. Day
loaded his gun with flowers of rhetoric and overshot infant
comprehension.

Nevertheless, in spite of the criticism that has waylaid and
torn to tatters Thomas Day's efforts to provide a suitable
and edifying variety of stories, his method still stands for the
: distind secularization of children's literature of amusement.
Moreover, as Mr. Montrose J. Moses writes in his delightful
study of "Children's Books and Reading," "he foreshadowed
the method of retelling incidents from the classics and from
standard history and travel, — a form which is pradised to
a great extent by our present writers, who thread diverse
materials on a slender wire of subsidiary story, and who, like
Butterworth and Knox, invent untiring families of travellers
who go to foreign parts, who see things, and then talk out
loud about them."

Besides tales by English authors, there was a French wo-
man, Madame de Genlis, whose books many educated people
regarded as particularly suitable for their daughters, both in
I the original text and in the English translations. In Aaron
Burr's letters we find references to his interest in the progress
made by his little daughter, Theodosia, in her studies. His
zeal in searching for helpful books was typical of the care
many others took to place the best literature within their

[ 132 ]

American Nursery

children's reach. From Theodosia's own letters to her father
we learn that she was a studious child, who wrote and ci-
phered from five to eight every morning and during the
same hours every evening. To improve her French, Mr. Burr
took pains to find reading-matter when his law pradice ne-
cessitated frequent absence from home. Thus from West
Chester, in seventeen hundred and ninety-six, when Theo-
dosia was nine years old, he wrote:

I rose up suddenly from the sofa and nibbing my head —
"What book shall I buy for her?" said I to myself "She
reads so much and so rapidly that it is not easy to find proper
and amusing French books for her; and yet I am so flattered
with her progress in that language, that I am resolved that
she shall, at all events, be gratified." So ... I took my hat
and sallied out. It was not my first attempt. I went into one
bookseller's after another. I found plenty of fairy tales and
such nonsense, for the generality of children of nine or ten
years old. "These," said I, "will never do. Her understand-
ing begins to be above such things." ... I began to be dis-
couraged. "But I will search a little longer." I persevered.
At last I found it. I found the very thing I sought. It is con-
tained in two volumes, odavo, handsomely bound, and with
prints and reprints. It is a work of fancy but replete with in-
struction and amusement. I must present it with my own hand.

Yr. aflfedionate

A. Burr.

What speculation there must have been in the Burr family
as to the name of the gift, and what joy when Mr. Burr pre-

[ 133 ]

^

Forgotten Books of the

sented the two volumes upon his return ! From a letter written
later by Mr. Burr to his wife, it appears that he afterward
found reason to regret his purchase, which seems to have been
Madame de Genlis's famous "Annales." "Your account,"
he wrote, "of Madame Genlis surprises me, and is new evi-
dence of the necessity of reading books before we put them in
the hands of children." Opinion differed, of course, concerning
the French lady's books. In New York, in Miss Dodsworth's
most genteel and fashionable school, a play written from "The
Dove " by Madame de Genlis was a6ted with the same zest by
little girls of ten and twelve years of age as they showed in
another play taken from "The Search after Happiness," a
drama by the Quakeress and religious writer, Hannah More.
These plays were given at the end of school terms by fond
parents with that appreciation of the histrionic ability of their
daughters still to be seen on such occasions.

No such objedion as Mrs. Burr made to this lady's
"Annales " was possible in regard to another French book, by
iBerquin. Entitled "Ami des Enfans," it received under the
Rev. Mr. Cooper's translation the name "The Looking Glass
for the Mind." This collection of tales supposedly mirrored
the frailties and virtues of rich and poor children. It was often
bound in full calf, and an edition of seventeen hundred and
ninety-four contains a better engraved frontispiece than it was |
customary to place in juvenile publications. For half a century
it was to be found in the shop of all booksellers, and had its
place in the library of every family of means. There are still
those among us who have not forgotten the impression pro-
duced upon their infant minds by certain of the tales. Some

[ 134]

American Nursery

remember the cruel child and the canary. Others recoiled
their admiration of the little maid who, when all others de-
serted her young patroness, lying ill with the smallpox, won
the undying gratitude of the mother by her tender nursing.
The author, blind himself to the possibilities of detriment to
the sick child by unskilled care, held up to the view of all,
this example of devotion of one girl in contrast to the hard-
heartedness of many others. This book seems also to have
been called by the literal translation of its original title, "Ami
des Enfans;" for in an account of the occupations of one sum-
mer Sunday in seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, Julia
Cowles, living in Litchfield, Connedicut, wrote : " Attended
meeting all day long, but do not recoiled the text. Read in
'The Children's Friend.'" Many children would not have
been permitted to read so nearly secular a book; but evidently
Julia Cowles's parents were liberal in their view of Sunday
reading after the family had attended "meeting all day long."

In addition to the interest of the context of these toy-books
of a past generation, one who handles such relics of a cen-
tury ago sees much of the fashions for children of that day.
In " The Looking Glass," for instance, the illustrations copied
from engravings by the famous English artist, Bewick, show
that at the end of the eighteenth century children were still
clothed like their elders; the coats and waistcoats, knee
breeches and hats, of boys were patterned after gentlemen's
garments, and the caps and aprons, kerchiefs and gowns, for
girls were reprodudions of the mothers' wardrobes.

Again, the fly-leaf of "The History of Master Jacky and
Miss Harriot" arrests the eye by its quaint inscription:

[ '35]

J

Forgotten Books of the

"Rozella Ford's Book. For being the second speller in the
second class." At once the imagination calls up the exercises
in a village school at the end of a year's session : a row of prim
little maids and sturdy boys, standing before the school dame
and by turn spelling in shrill tones words of three to five syl-
lables, until only two, Rozella and a better speller, remain
unconfused by Dil worth's and Webster's word mysteries.
Then the two children step forward with bow and curtsey
to receive their tiny gilt prizes from a pile of duodecimos
upon the teacher's desk. Indeed, the giving of rewards was
carried to such an extent as to become a great drain upon
the meagre stipend of the teacher. Thus when in copper-plate
handwriting we find in another six-penny volume the inscrip-
tion: "Benjamin H. Bailey, from one he esteems and loves,
Mr. Hapgood," we read between its lines the self-denial prac-
tised by Mr. Hapgood, who possibly received, like many
other teachers, but seventy-five cents a week besides his board
and lodging.

Other books afford a glimpse of children's life : the formal
every-day routine, the plays they enjoyed, and their demon-
stration of a sensibility as keen as was then in fashion for
adults. The "History of a Doll," lying upon the writer's
table, is among the best in this respe6t. It was evidently
much read by its owner and fairly " loved to pieces." When
it reached this disintegrated stage, a careful mother, or aunt,
sewed it with coarse flax thread inside a home-made cover
of bright blue wall-paper. Although the "History of the Ped-
igree and Rise of the Pretty Doll" bears no date, its com-
panion story in the wall-paper wrapper has the imprint sev-

[ 136]

American Nursery

enteen hundred and ninety-one, and diis, together with the
press-work, places it as belonging to the eighteenth century.
It offers to the reader a charming insight into the formality
of many an old-fashioned family : the deportment stiff with
the starched customs of that day, the seriousness of their fun,
and the sensibility among little maidens akin to that exhibited
in the heroines of fidion created by Richardson and Fielding.
The chapter concerning "The Pedigree of the Doll" treats
of finding a branch of a tree by a carver, who was desired
by Sir John Amiable to make one of the best dolls in his
power for his "pretty little daughter who was as good as she
was pretty." The carver accordingly took the branch and
began carving out the head, shoulders, body, and legs, which
he soon brought to their proper shape. " He then covered it
with a fine, flesh-colored enamel and painted its cheeks in
the most lively manner. It had the finest black and spark-
ling eyes that were ever beheld ; its cheeks resembled the
blushing rose, its neck the lilly, and its lips the coral." The
doll is presented, and the next chapter tells of "an assembly
of little female gossips in full debate on the clothing of the
doll." " Miss Polly having made her papa a vast number of
courtesies for it, prevailed on her brother to go round to all
the little gossips in the neighborhood, begging their company
to tea in the afternoon, in order to consult in what mode
the doll should be dressed." The company assembled. "Miss
Micklin undertook to make it a fine ruffled laced shift, Miss
Mantua to make it a silk sacque and petticoat; and in short,
every one contributed, in some measure, to dress out this
beautiful creature."

C '37]

Forgotten Books of the

*' Everything went on with great harmony till they came
to the head-dress of the doll; and here they differed so much
in opinion, that all their little clappers were going at once.
. . . Luckily, at this instant Mrs. Amiable happened to come
in, and soon brought the httle gossips to order. The matter
in dispute was, whether it should have a high head-dress or
whether the hair should come down on the forehead, and
the curls flow in natural ringlets on the shoulders. However,
after some pretty warm debate, this last mode was adopted,
as most proper for a little miss." In chapter third "The doll
is named: — Accidents attend the Ceremony." Here we have
a pidure of a children's party. " The young ladies and gen-
tlemen were entertained with tea and coffee; and when that
was over, each was presented with a glass of raisin wine."
During the christening ceremony an accident happened to
the doll, because Master Tommy, the parson, "in endeavour-
ing to get rid of it before the little gossips were ready to
receive it, made a sad blunder. . . . Miss Polly, with tears in
her eyes, snatched up the doll and clasped it to her bosom;
while the rest of the little gossips turned all the little mas-
ters out of the room, that they might be left to themselves
to inquire more privately into what injuries the dear doll had
received. . . . Amidst these alarming considerations Tommy
Amiable sent the ladies word, that, if they would permit him
and the rest of the young gentlemen to pass the evening
among them in the parlour, he would engage to replace the
nose of the doll in such a manner that not the appearance
of tiie late accident should be seen." Permission was accord-
ingly granted for a surgical operation upon the nose, but

[138]

American Nursery

"as to the fradure in one of the doll's legs, it was never cer-
tainly known how that was remedied, as the young ladies
thought it very indelicate to mention anything about the
matter." The misadventures of the doll include its theft by
a monkey in the West Indies, and at this interesting point
the only available copy of the tale is cut short by the loss of
the last four pages. The charm of this book lies largely in the
fad that the owner of the doll does not grow up and marry as
in almost every other novelette. This difference, of course,
prevents the story from being a typical one of its period, but
it is, nevertheless, a worthy forerunner of those tales of the
nineteenth century in which an effort was made to write
about incidents in a child's life, and to avoid the biographical
tendency.

Before leaving the books of the eighteenth century, one tale
must be mentioned because it contains the germ of the idea
which has developed into Mr. George's "Junior Republic."
It was called "Juvenile Trials for Robbing Orchards, Telling
Tales and other Heinous Offenses." "This," said Dr. Aikin
— Mrs. Barbauld's brother and collaborator in "Evenings
at Home" — "is a very pleasing and ingenious little Work,
in which a Court of Justice is supposed to be instituted in a
school, composed of the Scholars themselves, for the purpose
of trying offenses committed at School." In "Trial the First"
Master Tommy Tell-Truth charges Billy Prattle with rob-
bing an orchard. The jury, after hearing Billy express his
contrition for his ad, brings in a verdid of guilty; but the
judge pardons the culprit because of his repentant frame of
mind. Miss Delia, the offender in case Number I'wo, does not

[ 139 ]

•u

Forgotten Books of the

escape so lightly. Miss Stirling charges her with raising con-
tention and strife among her school-fellows over a piece of
angelica, "whereby," say her prosecutors, "one had her favorite
cap torn to pieces, and her hair which had been that day nicely
dressed, pulled all about her shoulders; another had her sack
torn down the middle; a third had a fine flowered apron of
her own working, reduced to rags; a fourth was wounded by
a pelick, or scratch of her antagonist, and in short, there was
hardly one among them who had not some mark to shew
of having been concerned in this unfortunate affair." That
the good Dr. Aikin approved of the punishment decreed,
we are sure. The little prisoner was condemned to pass three
days in her room, as just penalty for such "indelicate" be-
haviour.

f By the close of the century Miss Edgeworth was beginning

\ to supersede Mrs. Barbauld in England; but in America the

j taste in juvenile reading was still satisfied with the older writ-

I er's little Charles, as the corred model for children's deport-

I ment, and with Giles Gingerbread as the exemplary student.

The child's lessons had passed from "Be good or you will

go to Hell" to "Be good and you will be rich;" or, with the

Puritan element still so largely predominant, "Be good and

, you will go to Heaven." Virtue as an ethical quality had been

I shown in "Goody Two-Shoes" to bring its reward as surely

\ as vice brought punishment. It is to be doubted if this was

altogether wholesome ; and it may well be that it was with this

idea in mind that Dr. Johnson made his celebrated criticism

of the nursery literature in vogue, when he said to Mrs. Piozzi,

" Babies do not want to be told about babies; they like to

[ 140 ]

■J

American Nursery

be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can
stretch and stimulate their little minds." "^

The learned Dodor, having himself been brought up on
"Jack the Giant Killer" and "The History of Blue Beard,"
was inclined to scorn Newbery's tales as lacking in imagina-
tive quality. That Dr. Johnson was really interested in stories
for the young people of his time is attested by a note written
in seventeen hundred and sixty-three on the fly-leaf of a col-
ledion of chap-books : " I shall certainly, sometime or other,
write a little Story-Book in the style of these. I shall be happy
to succeed, for he who pleases children will be remembered
by them." f

In America, however, it is doubtful whether any true criti-

Ical spirit regarding children's books had been reached. Fortu-
nately in England, at the beginning of the next century, there
was a man who dared speak his opinion. Mrs. Barbauld and

I Mrs. Trimmer (who had contributed "Fabulous Histories"
to the juvenile library, and for them had shared the approval ;
which greeted Mrs. Barbauld's efforts) were the objeds of '
Charles Lamb's particular detestation. In a letter to Coleridge,
written in 1802, he said:

"Goody Two Shoes is almoft out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's
fluff haf banifhed all the old claffics of the nurfery, and the
fhopman at Newbery's hardly deigned to reach them off an
old exploded corner of a fhelf, when Mary afked for them.
Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonfenfe lay in piles
about. Knowledge infignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's
books convey, it feems, muit come to a child in the fhape

* Hill, Johnsonian Miscellany^ vol. i, p. 157. ^ Ibid,

[HI ]

Forgotten Books of the

of knowledge ; and hif empty noddle muft be turned with
conceit of hif own powers when he has learned that a horfe
is an animal and Billy is better than a horfe, and fuch like,
inftead of that beautiful intereft in wild tales, which made
the child a man, while all the time he fufpeded himfelf to
be no bigger than a child. Science has fucceeded to poetry
no lefs in the little walks of children than of men. Is there
no poffibiHty of arrefting this force of evil? Think what you
would have been now, if inftead of being fed with tales and
old wives' fables in childhood, you had been crammed with
geography and natural hiftory. Hang them ! I mean the curfed
Barbauld crew, thofe blights and blafts of all that is human
in man and child." ^

To Lamb's extremely sensitive nature, the vanished hand
of the literary man of Grub Street could not be replaced by
Mrs. Barbauld's wish to instrud by using simple language.
It is possible that he did her some injustice. Yet a retrospedive
glance over the story-book literature evolved since Newbery's
juvenile library was produced, shows little that was not poor
in quality and untrue to life. Therefore, it is no wonder that
Lamb should have cried out against the sore evil which had
"beset a child's mind." All the poetry of life, all the imagi-
j native powers of a child, Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Trimmer, and
Mr. Day ignored; and Newbery in his way, and the old bal-
lads in their way, had appealed to both.

In both countries the passion for knowledge resulted in
this curious literature of amusement. In England books were
written; in America they were reprinted, until a religious

* Welsh, IntroduB'ion to Goody Tivo Shoes^ p. x.

[ H2 ]

American Nursery

revival left in its wake the series of morbid and educational
tales which the desire to write original stories for American
children produced.

[ 143 ]

CHAPTER VI

1800-1825

Her morals then the Matron read,
Studious to teach her Children dear,
And they by love or Duty led,
With Pleasure read.

A Mother s Remarks ,

Philadelphia, 1810

Mama! see what a pretty book
At Day's papa has bought,
That I may at its pi6tures look,
And by its words be taught.

CHAPTER VI

1800-1825
Toy-Books in the Early Nineteenth Century

ON the 23d of December, 1823, there appeared anony-
mously in the "Troy (New York) Sentinel," a Christ-
mas ballad entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas." This rhymed
story of Santa Claus and his reindeer, written one year before
its publication by Clement Clarke Moore for his own family,
marks the appearance of a truly original story in the literature
of the American nursery.

We have seen the somewhat lugubrious influence of Puri-
tan and Quaker upon the occasional writings for American
children; and now comes a story bearing upon its face the
features of a Dutchman, as the jolly old gentleman enters
nursery lore with his happy errand.

Up to this time children of wholly English extradion had
probably little association with the Feast of St. Nicholas. The
Christmas season had hitherto been regarded as pagan in its
origin by people of Puritan or Scotch descent, and was cele-
brated only as a religious festival by the descendants of the
more liberal adherents to the Church of England. The Dutch
element in New York, however, still clung to some of their
traditions; and the custom of exchanging simple gifts upon
Christmas Day had come down to them as a result of a com-
bination of the church legend of the good St. Nicholas, pa-
tron of children, and the Scandinavian myth ofthe fairy gnome,
who from his bower in the woods showered good children with

[ H7 ]

Forgotten Books of the

gifts.* But to celebrate the day quietly was altogether a differ-
ent thing from introducing to the American public the char-
ader of Santa Claus, who has become in his mythical entity as
well known to every American as that other Dutch legendary
personage, Rip Van Winkle.

In the " Visit from St. Nicholas " Mr. Moore not only intro-
duced Santa Claus to the young folk of the various states, but
gave to them their first story of any lasting merit whatsoever.
It is worthy of remark that as every impulse to write for juve-
nile readers has lagged behind the desire to write for adults,
so the composition of these familiar verses telling of the
arrival in America of the mysterious and welcome visitor on

" The night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,"

fell at the end of that quarter of the nineteenth century to
which we are accustomed to refer as the beginning of the
national period of American literature.

It is, of course, true that the older children of that period
had already begun to enjoy some of the writings of Irving and
Cooper, and to learn the fortunately still familiar verses by
Hopkinson, Key, Drake, and Halleck. School-readers have
served to familiarize generation after generation with " Hail
Columbia," "The Star Spangled Banner," and sometimes
with "The American Flag." It is, doubtless, their authors'
jubilant enthusiasm over the freedom of the young Republic
that has caused the children of the more mature nation to
delight in the repetition of the patriotic verses. The youth-

*A8 long ago as seventeen hundred and sixty-two, Garrat Noel, a Dutch bookseller in
New York, advertised that, "according to his Annual Custom, he . . . provided a very large
Assortment of Books ... as proper Presents at Christmas." See page 68.

[ h8 ] :

American Nursery

ful extravagance of expression pervading every line is re-
echoed in the heart of the schoolboy, who likes to imagine
himself, before anything else, a patriot. But until "Bonder
and Blitzen" pranced into the foreground as Santa Claus'
steeds, there was nothing in American nursery literature of
any lasting fame. Thereafter, as the custom of observing
Christmas Day gradually became popular, the perennial
small child felt — until automobiles sent reindeer to the
Hmbo of bygone things — the thrill of delight and fear over
the annual visit of Santa Claus that the bigger child expe-
riences in exploding fire-crackers on the Fourth of July.
There are possibilities in both excitements which appeal to
one of the child's dearest possessions — his imagination.

It is this dired appeal to the imagination that surprises
and delights us in Mr. Moore's ballad. To re-read it is to
be amazed that anything so full of merriment, so modern,
so free from pompousness or condescension, from pedantry
or didadicism, could have been written before the latter half
of the nineteenth century. Not only its style is simple in con-
trast with the labored efforts at simplicity of its contempo-
raneous verse, but its story runs fifty years ahead of its time
in its freedom from the restraining hand of the moralist and
from the warning finger of the religious teacher, if we except
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wonder Book."

In our examination of the toy-books of twenty years pre-
^ceding its publication, we shall find nothing so attradive in
manner, nor so imaginative in conception. Indeed, we shall
see, upon the one hand, that fun was held in with such a tight
curb that it hardly ever escaped into print; and upon the other

[ H9 ]

v-J Forgotten Books of the

hand that the imagination had little chance to develop because
of the prodigal indulgence in realities and in religious experi-
ence from which all authors suffered. We shall also see that
I these realities were made very uncompromising and uncom-
fortable to run counter to. Duty spelled in capital letters was
a stumbling-block with which only the well-trained story-book
child could successfully cope; recreation followed in small
portions large shares of instrudion, whether disguised or bare
faced. The Religion-in-Play, the Ethics-in-Play, and the Labor-
in-Play schools of writing for children had arrived in America
from the land of their origin.

The stories in vogue in England during this first quarter
of the nineteenth century explain every vagary in America.
There fashionable and educational authorities had hitched
their wagon to the literary star, Miss Edgeworth, and the fol-
lowers of her system; while the religiously inclined pinned
their faith also upon trads written by Miss Hannah More. In
this still imitative land the booksellers simply reprinted the
more successful of these juvenile publications. The changes,
therefore, in the charader of the juvenile literature of amuse-
ment of the early nineteenth century in America were due to
the adoption of the works of these two Englishwomen, and
to the increased facilities for reproducing toy-books, both in
press-work and in illustrations.

Hannah More's allegories and religious dramas, written to
cooperate with the teachings of the first Sabbath Day schools,
are, of course, outside the literature of amusement. Yet they
aflfeded its type in America as they undoubtedly gave direc-
tion to the eflforts of the early writers for children.

[ 150]

American Nursery

Miss More, born in seventeen hundred and fifty-four, was
a woman of already established literary reputation when her
attention was attraded by Robert Raikes's successful experi-
ment of opening a Sunday-school, in seventeen hundred and
eighty-one. During the religious revival that attended the
preaching of George White field, Raikes, already interested
in the hardships and social condition of the working-classes,
was further aroused by his intimate knowledge of the manner
of life of some children in a pin fadory. To provide instruc-
tion for these child laborers, who, without work or restridions
on Sundays, sought occupation far from elevating, Raikes
founded the first "Sabbath Day school."

The movement spread rapidly in England, and ten years
later, in seventeen hundred and ninety-one, under the inspira-
tion of Bishop White, the pioneer First Day school in America
was opened in Philadelphia. The good Bishop was disturbed
mentally by the religious and moral degeneracy of the poor
children in his diocese, and annoyed during church services
by their clamor outside the churches — a noise often sufficient
to drown the prayers of his flock and the sermons of his clergy.
tTo occupy these restless children for a part of the day, two
:ssions of the school were held each Sunday : one before the
[morning service, from eight until half-past ten o'clock, and
fethe other in the afternoon for an hour and a half The Bible
Iwas used as a reader, and the teaching was done regularly by
fpaid instrudors.

The first Sunday-school library owed its origin to a wish to
^further the instrudion given in the school, and hence contained
[books thought admirably adapted to Sunday reading. Among

c 151 3

y Forgotten Books of the

the somewhat meagre stock provided for this purpose were
Doddridge's "Power of ReHgion," Miss More's trads and
the writings of her imitators, together with " The Fairchild
Family," by Mrs. Sherwood, "The Two Lambs," by Mrs.
I Cameron, " The Economy of Human Life," and a little volume
\ made up of seledions from Mrs. Barbauld's works for chil-
I dren. "The Economy of Human Life," said Miss Sedgwick
\ (who herself afterwards wrote several good books for girls),
"was quite above my comprehension, and I thought it un-
meaning and tedious." Testimony of this kind about a book
which for years appeared regularly upon booksellers' lists
enables us to realize that the average intelligent child of the
year eighteen hundred was beginning to be as bored by some
of the literature placed in his hands as a child would be one
hundred years later.

To increase this special class of books, Hannah More de-
voted her attention. Her forty trads comprising "The Cheap
Repository" included "The Shepherd of SaHsbury Plain"
and "The Two Shoemakers," which, often appearing in
j American booksellers' advertisements, were for many years
ia staple article in Sunday-school libraries, and even now, al-
though pushed to the rear, are discoverable in some such col-
ledions of books. Their objedive point is best given by their
author's own words in the preface to an edition of "The Search
after Happiness; A Pastoral Drama," issued by Jacob Johnson
of Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and eleven.

Miss More began in the self-depreciatory manner then
thought modest and becoming in women writers: "The au-
thor is sensible it may have many imperfedions, but if it may

[ 152 ]

American Nursery

be happily instrumental in producing a regard to Religion
and Virtue in the minds of Young Persons, and afford them an
innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful amusement in
the exercise of recitation, the end for which it was originally-
composed . . . will be fully answered." A drama may seem to
us above the comprehension of the poor and illiterate class of
people whose attention Miss More wished to hold, but when
we feel inclined to criticise, let us not forget that the author was
one who had written little eight-year-old Thomas Macaulay :
" I think we have nearly exhausted the epics. What say you to
a little good prose *? Johnson's ' Hebrides,' or Walton's ' Lives,*
unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems or
'Paradise Lost.'"

Miss More's influence upon the charader of Sunday-school
books in England undoubtedly did much to incline many
unknown American women of the nineteenth century to take
up this class of books as their own field for religious effort
and pecuniary profit.

Contemporary with Hannah More's writings in the interest t
of religious life of Sunday-school scholars were some of the f
literary produds of the painstaking pen of Maria Edgeworth. j

Mention of Miss Edgeworth has already been made. About
her stories for children criticism has played seriously, admir-
ingly, and contemptuously. It is not the present purpose, how-
ever, to do other than to make clear her own aim, and to try
to show the effed of her extremely moral tales upon her own i
generation of writers for American children. It is possible that
she affeded these authors more than the child audience for
whom she wrote. Little ones have a wonderful faculty for seiz-

[ 153]

Forgotten Books of the

ing upon what suits them and leaving the remainder for their
elders to discuss.

Maria Edgeworth's life was a long one. Bom in seventeen
hundred and sixty-seven, when John Newbery's books were
at the height of their fame, she lived until eighteen hundred
and forty-nine, when they were scarcely remembered; and
now her own once popular tales have met a similar fate.

She was educated by a father filled with enthusiasm by
the teachings of Rousseau and with advice from the platitu-
dinous family friend, Thomas Day, author of " Sanford and
Merton." Only the truly genial nature and strong charader of
Miss Edgeworth prevented her genius from being altogether
swamped by this incongruous combination. Fortunately, also,
her busy practical home life allowed her sympathies full
sway and counteraded many of the theories introduced by
Mr. Edgeworth into his family circle. Successive stepmothers
filled the Edgeworth nursery with children, for whom the
devoted older sister planned and wrote the stories afterward
published

In seventeen hundred and ninety-one Maria Edgeworth,
at her father's suggestion, began to note down anecdotes of
the children of the family, and later these were often used as
copy to be criticised by the little ones themselves before they
were turned over to the printer. Her father's educational con-
versations with his family were often committed to paper, and
these also furnished material from which Miss Edgeworth
made it her objed in life to interweave knowledge, amuse-
ment, and ethics. Indeed, it has been most aptly said that
between the narrow banks of Richard Edgeworth's theories

[ 154]

f^^l?

Offi^OOKFT^T^

?

76t

op-wi

XI cL

o-v^

Jacob Jolinsoifs Book-Store

American Nursery

his daughter's genius flowed through many volumes of

si

amusement."

Her first colledion of tales was published under the title
of" The Parent's Assistant," although Miss Edge worth's own
choice of a name had been the less formidable one of "The
Parent's Friend." Based upon her experience as eldest sister
in a large and constantly increasing family, these tales neces-
sarily struck many true notes and gave valuable hints to per-
plexed parents. In "The Parent's Assistant " realities stalked
full grown into the nursery as

"Every obje(5l in creation
Furnished hints for contemplation."

The charaders were invariably true to their creator's original
drawing. A good girl was good from morning to night; a
naughty child began and ended the day in disobedience, and
by it bottles were smashed, strawberries spilled, and lessons
disregarded in unbroken sequence. In later life Miss Edge-
worth confessed to having occasionally introduced in " Harry
and Lucy " some nonsense as an " alloy to make the sense
work well;" but as all her earlier children's tales were sub-
jeded to the pruning scissors of Mr. Edgeworth, this amal-
gam is to-day hardly noticeable in "Popular Tales," "Early
Lessons," and "Frank," which preceded the six volumes of
"Harry and Lucy."

Although a contemporary of Mrs. Barbauld, who had
written for little children " Easy Lessons," Miss Edgeworth
does not seem to have been well known in America until
about eighteen hundred and five. Then " Harry and Lucy "
was brought out by Jacob Johnson, a Philadelphia book-

[ 155 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

dealer. This was issued in six small red and blue marbled
paper volumes, although other parts were not completed
until eighteen hundred and twenty-three. Between the first
and second parts of volume one the educational hand of
Mr. Edge worth is visible in the insertion of a " Glossary,"
"to give a popular meaning of the words." "This Glossary,"
the editor, Mr. Edge worth, thought, "should be read to chil-
dren a litde at a time, and should be made the subjed of con-
versation. Afterwards they will read it with more pleasure."
The popular meaning of words may be succindly given by
one definition : " Dry, what is not wet." Could anything be
more lucid ^

Among the stories by Miss Edgeworth are three rarely
mentioned by critics, and yet among the most natural and
entertaining of her short tales. They were also printed by
Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia, in eighteen hundred and five,
under the simple title, " Three Stories for Children." " Little
Dog Trusty " is a dog any small child would like to read about;
" The Orangeman " was a charader familiar to English chil-
dren; and "The Cherry Orchard" is a tale of a day's pleasure
whose spirit American children could readily seize. In each
Miss Edgeworth had a story to tell, and she told it well, even \
though "she walked," as has been often said, "as mentor
beside her charaders."

Of Miss Edgeworth's many tales, "Waste Not, Want
Not" was long considered a model. In it what Mr. Edgeworth
styled the "shafts of ridicule" were aimed at the rich nephew
of Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham (whose prototype we strongly
susped was Mr. Edgeworth himself) " lived neither in idle-

[ 156]

American Nursery

ness nor extravagance," and was desirous of adopting an
heir to his considerable property. Therefore, he invited two
nephews to visit him, with the object of choosing the more
suitable for his purpose; apparently he had only to signify
his wish and no parental objedion to his plan would be inter-
posed. The boys arrive: Hal, whose mama spends her days
at Bath over cards with Lady Diana Sweepstake, is an ill-
bred child, neither deferential to his uncle, nor with appe-
tite for buns when queen-cakes may be had. His cousin Ben,
on the contrary, has been taught those virtuous habits that
make for a respedful attitude toward rich uncles and assure a
dissertation upon the beneficial effed of buns versus queen-
cakes. The boys, having had their characters thus definitely
shown, proceed to live up to them in every particular. From
start to finish it is the virtuous Ben — his generosity, thrift,
and foresight are never allowed to lapse for an instant — who
triumphs in every episode. He saves his string, "good whip-
cord," when requested by Mr. Gresham to untie a parcel, and
it thereafter serves to spin a fine new top, to help Hal out of
a difficulty with his toy, and in the final incident of the story^
an archery contest, our provident hero, finding his bowstring
"cracked," calmly draws from his pocket the still excellent
piece of cord, and affixing it to his bow, wins the match.
Hal betrays his great lack of self-control by exclaiming, " The
everlasting whipcord, I declare," and thereupon Patty, Mr.
Gresham's only child, who has suffered from Hal's defeds
of charader, openly rejoices when the prize is given to Ben.
As is usual with Miss Edgeworth's badly behaved children,
the reader now sees the error of Hal's ways, and perceives

[ 157]

Forgotten Books of the

also that in the lad's acknowledgment of the truth of the
formerly scorned motto, " Waste not, want not," the era of
his reformation has begun.

Perpetual a6tion was the key to the success of Miss Edge-
worth's writings. If to us her fiditious children seem like
puppets whose strings are too obviously jerked, the monoto-
nous moral cloaked in the variety of incident was liked by
her own generation,

Miss Edge worth not only pleased the children, but received
! the applause of their parents and friends. Sir Walter Scott,
the prince of story-tellers, found much to admire in her tales,
and wrote of "Simple Susan:" "When the boy brings back
the lamb to the little girl, there is nothing for it but to put
down the book and cry." Susan was the pattern child in the
tale, "clean as well as industrious," while Barbara — a violent
contrast — was conceited and lazy, and a lady who "could
descend without shame from the height of insolent pride to
the lowest measure of fawning familiarity." Therefore it is
small wonder that Sir Walter passed her by without mention.
However much we may value an English author's admira-
tion for Miss Edgeworth's story-telling gifts, it is to America
that we naturally turn to seek contemporary opinion. In edu-
\ cational circles there is no doubt that Miss Edge worth won
1 high praise. That her books were not always easy to procure,
however, we know from a letter written from Washington by
Mrs. Josiah Quincy, whose life as a child during the Revolu-
tion has already been described. When Mrs. Quincy was liv-
ing in the capital city in eighteen hundred and ten, during her
husband's term as Congressman, she found it difficult to pro-

[ 158]

American Nursery

vide her family with books. She therefore wrote to Boston to
a friend, requesting to have sent her Miss Edgeworth's " Moral
Tales," "if the work can be obtained in one of the bookstores.
If not," she continued, "borrow one . . . and I will replace it
with a new copy. Cut the book out of its binding and enclose

tlie pages in packets Be careful to send the entire text and

title page." The scarcity in Washington of books for young
people Mrs. Quincy thought justified the hope that reprinting
these tales would be profitable to a bookseller in whose efforts
to introduce a better taste among the inhabitants she took
a keen interest. But Mrs. Quincy need not have sent to Boston
for them. Jacob Johnson in Philadelphia had issued most of
the English author's books by eighteen hundred and five, and
New York publishers probably made good profit by printing
them.

Reading aloud was both a pastime and an education to
families in those early days of the Republic. Although Mrs.
Quincy made every effort to procure Miss Edgeworth's stories
for her family because, in her opinion, "they obtained a de-
cided preference to the works of Hannah More, Mrs. Trim-
mer and Mrs. Chapone," for reading aloud she chose extrads
from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed,
if it were possible to ask our great-grandparents what books
they remembered reading in their childhood, I think we
should find that beyond somewhat hazy recolledions of Miss
Edgeworth's books and Berquin's "The Looking Glass for
the Mind," they would either mention "Robinson Crusoe,"
Newbery's tales of "Giles Gingerbread," "Little King Pip-
pin," and "Goody Two -Shoes" (written fifty years before

[ 159]

Forgotten Books of the

their own childhood), or remember only the classic tales and
sketches read to them by their parents.

Certainly this is the case if we may take as trustworthy the
recolledions of literary people whose childhood was passed
in the first part of the nineteenth century. Catharine Sedg-
wick, for instance, has left a charming pidure of Ameri-
can family life in a country town in eighteen hundred — a
life doubtless paralleled by many households in comfortable
circumstances. Among the host of little prigs and prudes
in story-books of the day, it is delightful to find in Catha-
rine Sedgwick herself an example of a bookish child who
was natural. Her reminiscences include an account of the
way the task of sweeping out the schoolhouse after hours was
made bearable by feasts of Malaga wine and raisins. These
she procured from the store where her father kept an open
account, until the bill having been rendered dotted over with
such charges "per daughter Catharine," these treats to favorite
schoolmates ceased. Also a host of intimate details of this large
family's life in the country brings us in touch with the times :
fifteen pairs of calfskin shoes ordered from the village shoe-
maker, because town-bought morocco slippers were few and
far between; the excitement of a silk gown; the distress of
a brother, whose trousers for fete occasions were remodelled
from an older brother's "blue broadcloth worn to fragility —
so that Robert [the younger brother] said he could not look
at them without making a rent;" and again the anticipation
of the father's return from Philadelphia with gifts of necessa-
ries and books.

After seventeen hundred and ninety-five Mr. Sedgwick was

[ i6o]

American Nursery

compelled as a member of Congress to be away the greater
part of each year, leaving household and farm to the care
of an invalid wife. Memories of Mr. Sedgwick's infrequent
visits home were mingled in his daughter's mind with the
recolledions of being kept up until nine o'clock to listen to
his reading from Shakespeare, Don Quixote, or Hudibras.
"Certainly," wrote Miss Sedgwick, "I did not understand
them, but some glances of celestial light reached my soul,
and I caught from his magnetic sympathy some elevation
of feeling, and that love of reading which has been to me
an 'education.'" "I was not more than twelve years old," she
continues, "I think but ten — when one winter I read Rollin's
Ancient History. The walking to our schoolhouse was often
bad, and I took my lunch (how well I remember the bread
and butter, and 'nut cake' and cold sausage, and nuts and
apples that made the miscellaneous contents of that enchant-
ing lunch-basket!), and in the interim between morning and
afternoon school I crept under my desk (the desks were so
made as to afford little close recesses under them) and read
and munched and forgot myself in Cyrus' greatness."

It is beyond question that the keen relish induced by the
scarcity of juvenile reading, together with the sound diges-
tion it promoted, overbalanced in mental gain the novelties
of a later day.

The Sedgwick library was probably typical of the average
choice in reading-matter of the contemporary American child.
Haifa dozen little story-books, Berquin's " Children's Friend "
(the very form and shade of color of its binding with its green
edges were never forgotten by any member of the Sedgwick

[i6i ]

Forgotten Books of the

family), and the "Looking Glass for the Mind" were shelved
side by side with a large volume entitled " Elegant Extrads,"
full of ballads, fables, and tales delightful to children whose
imagination was already excited by the solemn mystery of
Rowe's "Letters from the Dead to the Living." Since none of
these books except those containing an infusion of religion
were allowed to be read on Sunday, the Sedgwick children
extended the bounds by turning over the pages of a book,
and if the word "God" or "Lord" appeared, it was pounced
upon as sandified and therefore permissible.

Where families were too poor to buy story-books, the chil-
dren found what amusement they could in the parents' small
library. In ministers' families sermons were more plentiful
than books. Mrs. H. B. Stowe, when a girl, found barrels of
sermons in the garret of her father, the Rev. Dr. Beecher, in
Litchfield, Connecticut. Through these sermons his daughter
searched hungrily for mental food. It seemed as if there were
thousands of the most unintelligible things. "An appeal on
the unlawfulness of a man's marrying his wife's sister" turned
up in every barrel by the dozens, until she despaired of finding
an end of it. At last an ancient volume of " Arabian Nights "
was unearthed. Here was the one inexhaustible source of
delight to a child so eager for books that at ten years of age
she had pored over the two volumes of the "Magnalia."

The library advantages of a more fortunately placed old-
fashioned child we know from Dr. Holmes's frequent refer-
ence to incidents of his boyhood. He frankly confessed that
he read in and not through many of the two thousand books in
his father's library; but he found much to interest him in the

[ 162]

American Nursery

volumes of periodicals, especially in the "Annual Register"
andRees's "Encyclopedia." Although apparently allowed to
choose from the book-shelves, there were frequent evidences
of a parent's careful supervision. " I remember," he once wrote
to a friend, "many leaves were torn out of a copy of Dryden's
Poems, with the comment ' Hiatus haud diflendus,' but I had
like all children a kind of Indian sagacity in the discovery of
contraband reading, such as a boy carries to a corner for peru-
sal. Sermons I had enough from the pulpit. I don't know that
I ever read one sermon of my own accord during my child-
hood. The 'Life of David,' by Samuel Chandler, had adven-
tures enough, to say nothing of gallantry, in it to stimulate
and gratify curiosity." "Biographies of Pious Children," wrote
Dr. Holmes at another time, "were not to my taste. Those
young persons were generally sickly, melancholy, and buzzed
around by ghostly comforters or discomforters in a way that
made me sick to contemplate." Again, Dr. Holmes, writing
of the revolt from the commonly accepted religious dodrines
he experienced upon reading the Rev. Thomas Scott's Family
Bible, contrasted the gruesome dodrines it set forth with the
story of Christian told in " Pilgrim's Progress," a book which
captivated his imagination.

As to story-books. Dr. Holmes once referred to Mrs.
Barbauld and Dr. Aikin's joint produdion, "Evenings at
Home," with an accuracy bearing testimony to his early love
for natural science. He also paid a graceful tribute to Lady
Bountiful of "Little King Pippin" in comparing her in a
conversation "At the Breakfast Table" with the appearance
of three maiden ladies "rustling through the aisles of the

[ 163]

Forgotten Books of the

old meeting-house, in silk and satin, not gay but more than
decent."

Although Dr. Holmes was not sufficiently impressed with
the contents of Miss Edgeworth's tales to mention them, at
least one of her books contained much of the sort of informa-
tion he found attractive in "Evenings at Home." "Harry and
Lucy," besides pointing a moral on every page, foreshadowed
that taste for natural science which turned every writer's
thought toward printing geographical walks, botanical ob-
servations, natural history conversations, and geological dis-
sertations in the guise of toy-books of amusement. A batch of
books issued in America during the first two decades of the
nineteenth century is illustrative of this new fashion. These
books, belonging to the Labor-in-Play school, may best be
described in their American editions.

One hundred years ago the American publishers of toy
works were devoting their attention to the make-up rather
than to the contents of their wares. The steady progress of the
industrial arts enabled a greater number of printers to issue
juvenile books, whose attradiveness was increased by better
illustrations; and also with the improved facilities for printing
and publishing, the issues of the various firms became more
individual. At the beginning of the century the cheaper books
entirely lost their charming gilt, flowery Dutch, and silver
wrappers, as home produds came into use. Size and illustra-
tions also underwent a change.

In Philadelphia, Benjamin and Jacob Johnson, and later
Johnson and Warner, issued both tiny books two inches
square, and somewhat larger volumes containing illustrations

[ 164]

J. Wall'faper Book-Cover

'J

American Nursery

as well as text These firms used for binding gray and blue
marbled paper, gold-powdered yellow cardboard, or salmon
pink, blue, and olive-green papers, usually without ornamen-
tation. In eighteen hundred J. and J. Crukshank, of the same
town, began to decorate with copper-plate cuts the outside of
the white or blue paper covers of their imprints for children.
Other printers followed their example, especially after wood-
engraving became more generally used.

In Wilmington, Delaware, John Adams printed and sold
"The New History of Blue Beard" in both peacock-blue and
olive-green paper covers ; but Peter Brynberg, also of that town,
was still in eighteen hundred and four using quaint wall-paper
to dress his toy imprints. Matthew Carey, the well-known
printer of school-books for the children of Philadelphia, made
a " Child's Guide to Spelling and Reading " more acceptable
by a charming cover of yellow and red striped paper dotted
over with little black hearts suggestive of the old Primer
rhyme for the letter B:

" My Book and Heart
Shall never part."

In New York the dealers in juvenile books seem either to
have bound in calf such classics as "The Blossoms of Moral-
ity," published by David Longworth at the Shakespeare Gal-
lery in eighteen hundred and two, or in decorated but unat-
tractive brown paper. This was the cover almost invariably
used for years by Samuel Wood, the founder of the present
publishing-house of medical works. He began in eighteen
hundred and six to print the first of his many thousands of
children's religious, instructive, and nursery books. As was the

[ i6S ]

V

Forgotten Books of the

custom in order to insure a good sale, Wood first brought
out a primer, " The Young Child's A B C." He decorated
its Quaker gray cover with a woodcut of a flock of birds,
and its title-page with a pidure, presumably by Alexander
Anderson, of a girl holding up a dove in her left hand and
holding down a lamb with her right.

In New England, Nathaniel Coverly of Salem sometimes
used a watered pink paper to cover his sixteen page toy-
books, and in Boston his son, as late as eighteen hundred
and thirteen, still used pieces of large patterned wall-paper
for six-penny books, such as "Tom Thumb," "Old Mother
Hubbard," and "Cock Robin."

The change in the appearance of most toy-books, how-
ever, was due largely to the increased use of illustrations. The
work of the famous English engraver, Thomas Bewick, had
at last been successfully copied by a physician of New York,
Dr. Alexander Anderson.

Dr. Anderson was born in New York in seventeen hun-
dred and seventy-five, and by seventeen hundred and ninety-
three was employed by printers and publishers in New York,
New Jersey, Philadelphia, and even Charleston to illustrate
their books. Like other engravers, he began by cutting in
type-metal, or engraving upon copper. In seventeen hundred
and ninety-four, for Durell of New York, he undertook to
make illustrations, probably for " The Looking Glass for the
Mind." Beginning by copying Bewick's pi6tures upon type-
metal, when "about one-third done. Dr. Anderson felt satis-
fied he could do better on wood." * In his diary we find noted

* Linton, Wood Engraving in America. Boston, 1882.

[ 166 ]

American Nursery/

an instance of his perseverance in the midst of discourage-
ment: "Sept. 24. This morning I was quite discouraged
on seeing a crack in the wood. Employed as usual at the
Doctor's, came home to dinner, glued the wood and began
again with fresh hopes of producing a good wood engrav-
ing." September 26 found him "pretty well satisfied with
the impression and so was Durell." In eighteen hundred he
I engraved all the pidures on wood for a new edition of the
same book, and from this time he seems to have discontin-
ued the use of type-metal, which he had employed in his
earlier work as illustrator of the " Pilgrim's Progress " issued
by Hugh Gaine, and of "Tom Thumb's Folio" printed by
Brewer. After eighteen hundred and twelve Anderson almost
gave up engraving on copper also, and devoted himself to
satisfying the great demand for his work on wood. For Durell
of New York, an extensive reprinter of English books, from
toy-books to a folio edition of Josephus, he reproduced the
English engravings, never making, according to Mr. Lossing,
more than a frontispiece for the larger volumes.

Although Samuel Wood and Sons of New York also
gave Dr. Anderson many orders for cuts for their various
juvenile publications, he still found time to engrave for pub-
lishers of other cities. We find his illustrations in the toy-
books printed in Boston and Philadelphia; and for Sidney
Babcock, a New Haven publisher of juvenile literature, he
supplied many of the numerous woodcuts required. The
best of Anderson's work as an engraver coincided with the
years of Babcock's very extensive business of issuing chil-
dren's books, between 1805 and 1840. His cuts adorned the

[ 167 ]

y

Forgotten Books of the

juvenile duodecimos that this printer's widely extended trade
demanded; and even as far south as Charleston, South Caro-
lina, Babcock, like Isaiah Thomas, found it profitable to
open a branch shop.

Anderson's illustrations are the main features of most of
Babcock's little blue, pink, and yellow paper-covered books;
especially of those printed in the early years of the nineteenth
I century. We notice in them the changes in the dress of chil-
dren, who no longer were clothed exadly in the semblance
of their elders, but began to assume garments more appro-
priate to their ages, sports, and occupations. Anderson also
sometimes introduced into his pidures a negro coachman
or nurse in the place of the footman or maid of the English
tale he illustrated.

While the demand for the engraver's work was constant,
his remuneration was small, if we are to judge by Babcock's
payment of only fifty shillings for fifteen cuts.

For these toy-books Anderson made many reprodudions
from Bewick's cuts, and although he did not equal the Eng-
lishman's work, he so far surpassed his pupils and imitators
of the early part of the century that his engravings are gen-
erally to be recognized even when not signed. In eighteen
hundred and two Dr. Anderson began to reproduce for David
Longworth Bewick's "Quadrupeds," and these "cuts were
afterwards made use of, with the Bewick letter-press also, for
a series of children's books. " *

In eighteen hundred and twelve, for Munroe & Francis of
Boston, Dr. Anderson made after J. Thompson a set of cuts,

* Linton, TVood Engraving in America. Boston, 1882.

[ 168]

American Nursery

mainly remarkable "as the chief of his few departures from
the style of his favorite, Bewick."*

The custom of not signing either text or engravings in
the children's books has made it difficult to identify writers
and illustrators of juvenile literature. But some of the best
engravers undoubtedly practised their art on these toy-books.
Nathaniel Dearborn, who was a stationer, printer, and en-
graver in Boston about eighteen hundred and eleven, some-
times signed the full-page illustrations on both wood and
copper, and Abel Bo wen, a copper-engraver, and possibly
the first wood-engraver in Boston, signed a very curious pub-
lication entitled "A Metamorphosis" — a manifold paper
which in its various possible combinations transformed one
figure into another in keeping with the progress of the story.

C. Gilbert, a pupil of Mason, who had introduced the art
of wood-engraving in Philadelphia from Boston, engraved on
wood certainly the two full-page illustrations for "A Present
for a Little Girl," printed in eighteen hundred and sixteen for
a Baltimore firm, Warner & Hanna.

Adams and his pupils, Lansing and Morgan, also did work
on children's books. Adams seems to have worked under An-
derson's instrudion, and after eighteen hundred and twenty-
five did cuts for some books in the juvenile libraries of
S. Wood and Mahlon Day of New York.

Of the engravers on copper, many tried their hands on these
toy-books. Among them may be mentioned Amos Doolittle
of New Haven, James Poupard, John Neagle, and W. Ralph
of Philadelphia, and Rollinson of New York, who is credited

* Linton, Wood Engraving in America. Boston, 1882.

[ 169 ]

^ Forgotten Books of the

with having engraved the silver buttons on the coat worn by-
Washington on his inauguration as President.

But of the copper-plate engravers, perhaps none did more
work for children's books than William Charles of Philadel-
phia. Charles, who is best known by his series of caricatures
of the events of the War of 1812 and of local politics, worked
upon toy-books as early as eighteen hundred and eight, when
in Philadelphia he published in two parts "Tom the Piper's
Son; illustrated with whimsical engravings." In these books
both text and pidures were engraved, as will be seen in the
illustration. Charles's plates for a series of moral tales in verse
were used by his successors, Mary Charles, Morgan & Yea-
ger, and Morgan & Sons, for certainly fifteen years after the
originals were made. To William Charles the children in the
vicinity of Philadelphia were also probably indebted for
the introdudion of colored pidures. It is possible that the
young folks of Boston had the novelty of colored pidure-
books somewhat before Charles introduced them in Phila-
delphia, as we find that "The History and Adventures of
Little Henry exemplified in a series of figures" was printed
by J. Belcher of the Massachusetts town in 1812. These
" figures " exhibited little Henry suitably attired for the various
incidents of his career, with a movable head to be attached
at will to any of the figures, which were not engraved with
the text, but each was laid in loose on a blank page. William
Charles's method of coloring the pidures engraved with the
text was a slight advance, perhaps, upon the illustrations in-
serted separately; but it is doubtful whether these immovable
plates afforded as much entertainment to little readers as the

[ 170 ]

Tlie GOAT was agoing to ^liave

ott lus iearcL,
But sooiihe wa^done wfieiiTOMS

music Jie heapd,
He Trin out o£ doo¥;$ iti akincL

Ax\K daitcecl this fitie dance
WhicTi IS now aH the fiisEdoiiL .

^om the Piper's Son

American Nursery

separate figures similar to paper dolls which Belcher, and some-
what later Charles also, used in a few of their publications.

The "Peacock at Home," engraved by Charles and then
colored in aqua-tint, is one of the rare early colored pidure-
books still extant, having be en first issued in eighteen hundred
and fourteen. The coloring of the illustrations at first doubled
the price, and seems to have been used principally for a
series of stories belonging to what may be styled the Ethics-
in-Play type of juvenile literature, and entitled the "His-
tory and Adventures of Little WiUiam," "Little Nancy,"
etc. These tales, written after the objedive manner of Miss
Edgeworth, glossed over by rhyme, contained usually eight
colored plates, and sold for twenty-five cents each instead of
twelve cents, the price of the pidure-book without colored
plates. Sometimes, as in the case of "Cinderella," we find the
text illustrated with a number of " Elegant Figures, to dress
and undress." The paper doll could be placed behind the
costumes appropriate to the various adventures, and, to pre-
vent the loss of the heroine, the book was tied up with pink
or blue ribbon after the manner of a portfolio.

With engravers on wood and copper able to make more
attradive the passion for instrudion which marked the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, the variety of toy-book
literature naturally became greater. Indeed, without pidures
to render somewhat entertaining the Labor-in-Play school, it
is doubtful whether it could have attained its widespread
popularity.

It is, of course, possible to name but a few titles typical
of the various kinds of instrudion offered as amusement. "To

[ '71 ]

Forgotten Books of the

present to the young Reader a Little Miscellany of Natu-
ral History, Moral Precept, Sentiment, and Narrative," Dr.
Kendall wrote "Keeper's Travels in Search of his Master,"
"The Canary Bird," and "The Sparrow." "The Prize for
Youthful Obedience " endeavored to instill a love for ani-
mals, and to promote obedient habits. Its story runs in this
way:

"A kind and good father had a little lively son, named
Francis; but, although that little boy was six years old, he had
not yet learned to read.

"His mama said to him, one day, 'if Francis will learn to
read well, he shall have a pretty little chaise.'

"The little boy was vastly pleased with this; he presently
spelt five or six words and then kissed his mama.

"'Mama,' said Francis, 'I am delighted with the thoughts
of this chaise, but I should like to have a horse to draw it.'

"'Francis shall have a little dog, which will do instead
of a horse,' replied his mama, 'but he must take care to give
him some viduals, and not do him any harm.'"

The dog was purchased, and named Chloe. "She was as
brisk as a bee, prettily spotted, and as gentle as a lamb."
We are now prepared for trouble, for the lesson of the story
is surely not hidden. Chloe was fastened to the chaise, a cat
secured to serve as a passenger, and "Francis drove his little
chaise along the walk." But "when he had been long enough
among the gooseberry trees, his mama took him in the gar-
den and told him the names of the flowers." We are thus led
to suppose that Francis had never been in the garden before !
The mother is called away. We feel sure that the trouble

[ 172 ]

J Kind and Good Fath

er

American Nursery

anticipated is at hand. "As soon as she was gone Francis
began whipping the dog," and of course when the dog dashed
forward the cat tumbled out, and "poor Chloe was terrified
by the chaise which banged on all sides. Francis now heartily
repented of his cruel behaviour and went into the house
crying, and looking like a very simple boy."

"I see very plainly the cause of this misfortune," said the
father, who, however, soon forgave his repentant son. There-
after every day Francis learned his lesson, and was rewarded
by fads and pidures about animals, by table-talks, or by walks
about the country.

Knowledge offered within small compass seems to have
been a novelty introduced in Philadelphia by Jacob Johnson,
who had a juvenile library in High Street.

In eighteen hundred and three he printed two tiny volumes
entitled "A Description of Various Objeds." Bound in green
paper covers, the two-inch square pages were printed in bold
type. The first volume contained the illustrations of the objeds
described in the other. The charaderizations were exceed-
ingly short, as, for example, this of the "Puppet Show:"
"Here are several little boys and girls looking at a puppet
show, I suppose you would like to make one of them."

Four years later Johnson improved upon this, when he
printed in better type "People of all Nations; an useful toy
for Girl or Boy." Of approximately the same size as the other
volumes, it was bound with stiff sides and calf back. The
plates, engraved on copper, represent men of various nation-
alities in the favorite alphabetical order. A is an American.
V is a Virginian, — an Indian in scant costume of feathers with

[ 173 ]

/

Forgotten Books of the

a long pipe, — who, the printed description says, " is generally
dressed after the manner of the English; but this is a poor
African, and made a slave of" An orang-outang represents
the letter O, and according to the author, is "a wild man
of the woods, in the East Indies. He sleeps under trees, and
builds himself a hut. He cannot speak, but when the natives
make a fire in the woods he will come and warm himself"
Ten years later there was still some difficulty in getting
exad descriptions of unfamiliar animals. Thus in "A Familiar
Description of Beasts and Birds" the baboon is drawn with
a dog's body and an uncanny head with a snout. The reader
is informed that "the baboon has a long face resembling a
dog's; his eyes are red and very bright, his teeth are large
and strong, but his swiftness renders him hard to be taken.
He delights in fishing, and will stay for a considerable time
under water. He imitates several of our adions, and will
drink wine, and eat human food."

Another series of three books, written by William Darton,
the English publisher and maker of toy-books, was called
"Chapters of Accidents, containing Caution and Instrudion."
Thrilling accounts of "Escapes from Danger" when robbing
birds'-nests and hunting lions and tigers were intermingled
with wise counsel and lessons to be gained from an "Upset
Cart," or a "Balloon Excursion." With one incident the
Philadelphia printer took the liberty of changing the title to
"Cautions to Walkers on the Streets of Philadelphia." High
Street, now Market Street, is represented in a pidure of the
young woman who, unmindful of the warning, "Never to
turn hastily around the corner of a street," "ran against the

[ 174 ]

^^m7an.

A Baboon

L

/;

American Nursery

porter's load and nearly lost one of her eyes.*' The change, of
course, is worthy of notice only because of the slight effort
to locate the story in America.

An attempt to familiarize children with flowers resulted in
two tales, called "The Rose's Breakfast" and "Flora's Gala,"
in which flowers were personified as they took part in fetes.
"Garden Amusements, for Improving the Minds of Little
Children," was issued by Samuel Wood of New York with
this advertisement: "This little treatise, (written and first
published in the great emporium of the British nation) con-
taining so many pleasing remarks for the juvenile mind, was
thought worthy of an American edition. . . . Being so very
natural, . . . and its tendency so moral and amusing, it is to
be hoped an advantage will be obtained from its re-publica-
tion in Freedonia."

-i-' Dialogue was the usual method of instru6tion employed
by Miss Edge worth and her followers. In "Garden Amuse-
ments " the conversation was interrupted by a note criticising
a quotation from Milton as savoring too much of poetic
license. Cowper also gained the anonymous critic's disappro-
val, although it was his point of view and not his style that
came under censure.

^- In still another series of stories often reprinted from London
editions were those moral tales with the sub-title "Caution-
ary Stories in Verse." Mr. William James used these " Cau-
tionary Verses for Children" as an example of the manner
in which "the muse of evangelical protestantism in England,
with the mind fixed on the ideas of danger, had at last drifted
away from the original gospel of freedom." "Chronic anxiety,"

[ 175 ]

Forgotten Books of the

Mr. James continued, " marked the earlier part of this [nine-
teenth] century in evangehcal circles." A little salmon-col-
ored volume, "The Daisy," is a good example of this series.
Each rhyme is a warning or an admonition; a chronic fear
that a child might be naughty. "Drest or Undrest" is typical
of the sixteen hints for the proper condud of every-day life
contained in the innocent "Daisy:"

"When children are naughty and will not be drest,
Pray what do you think is the way?
Why, often I really believe it is best
To keep them in night-clothes all day!

"But then they can have no good breakfast to eat,
Nor walk with their mother and aunt;
At dinner they'll have neither pudding nor meat,
Nor anything else that they want.

"Then who would be naughty and sit all the day
In night-clothes unfit to be seen!
And pray who would lose all their pudding and play
For not being drest neat and clean." ^

Two other sets of books with a like purpose were brought
out by Charles about eighteen hundred and sixteen. One be-
gan with those familiar nursery verses entitled "My Mother,"
by Ann Taylor, which were soon followed by " My Father," all
the family, "My Governess," and even "My Pony." The
other set of books was "calculated to promote Benevolence
and Virtue in Children." "Little Fanny," "Little Nancy,"
and "Little Sophie "were all held up as warnings of the results
of pride, greed, and disobedience.

The difference between these heroines of fidion and the
characters drawn by Maria Edgeworth lies mainly in the fad

[ 176]

Drest or Undrest

^^

American Nursery

that they spoke in rhyme instead of in prose, and that they . .

were almost invariably naughty; or else the parents were cruel , i J\ ^ j

and the children suffered. Rarely do we find a cheerful tale ^ ^y

such as "The Cherry Orchard" in this cautionary style of /

toy-book. Still more rarely do we find any suspicion of that

alloy of nonsense supposed by Miss Edgeworth to make the

sense work well. It is all quite serious. " Little Nancy, or, the

Punishment of Greediness," is representative of this sort of

moral and cautionary tale. The frontispiece, "embellishing"

the first scene, shows Nancy in receipt of an invitation to a

garden party:

"Now the day soon appeared
But she very much fear'd
She should not be permitted to go.
Her best frock she had torn,
The last time it was worn;
Which was very vexatious, you know."

However, the mother consents with the caution:

"Not to greedily eat
The nice things at the treat;
As she much wished to break her of this."

Arrived at the party, Nancy shared the games, and

"At length was seated,
With her friends to be treated;
So determined on having her share,
That she drank and she eat
Ev'ry thing she could get,
Yet still she was loth to forbear."

The disastrous consequences attending Nancy's disregard of
her mother's admonition are displayed in a full-page illus-

Forgotten Books of the

tration, which is followed by another depiding the sorrowful
end in bed of the day's pleasure. Then the moral:

"My young readers beware,
And avoid with great care
Such excesses as these you 've just read;
For be sure you will find
It your interest to mind
What your friends and relations have said." ~

Perhaps of all the toy imprints of the early century none
are more curious in modern eyes than the three or four Ger-
man translations printed by Philadelphia firms. In eighteen
hundred and nine Johnson and Warner issued "Kleine
Erzahlungen iiber ein Buch mit Kupfern." This seems to
be a translation of "A Mother's Remarks over a Set of Cuts,"
and contains a reference to another book entitled " Anecdo-
ten von Hunden." Still another book is extant, printed in
eighteen hundred and five by Zentler, "Unterhaltungenfiir
Deutsche Kinder." This, according to its preface, was one
of a series for which Jacob and Benjamin Johnson had con-
sented to lend the plates for illustrations.

Patriotism, rather than diversion, still charaderized the
very little original work of the first quarter of the century
for American children. A book with the imposing title of
"Geographical, Statistical and Political Amusement" was
published in Philadelphia in eighteen hundred and six. "This
work," says its advertisement, "is designed as an easy means
of uniting Instrudion with Pleasure ... to entice the youth-
ful mind to an acquaintance with a species of information
[about the United States] highly useful."

[ ^78 ]

American Nursery

" The Juvenile Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository of
Useful Information," issued in eighteen hundred and three,
contained as its only original contribution an article upon
General Washington's will, "an affeding and most original
composition," wrote the editor. This was followed seven years
later by the well-known "Life of George Washington," by
M. L. Weems, in which was printed the now famous and dis-
puted cherry-tree incident. Its abridged form known to pres-
ent day nursery lore differs from the long drawn out account
by Weems, who, like Thomas Day, risked being diffuse in his
desire to show plainly his moral. The last part of the story
sufficiently gives his manner of writing :

"Presently George and his hatchet made their appear-
ance. 'George,' said his father, 'do you know who killed that
beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden^' That was
a tough question ; and George staggered under it for a mo-
ment; but quickly recovered himself, and looking at his
father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the in-
expressible charm of all conquering truth, he bravely cried
out, 'I can't tell a lie. Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did
cut it with my hatchet! ' 'Run to my arms, you dearest boy,'
cried his father in transports, 'run to my arms; glad am I,
George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it
a thousand fold. Such an a6t of heroism is worth more than a
thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits
of purest gold.' "

Franklin's "Way to Wealth" was considered to be per- { /
\ fe6tly adapted to all children's comprehension, and was is- /
\ sued by various publishers of juvenile books. By eighteen

[ 179 ]

Forgotten Books of the

hundred and eight it was illustrated and sold "with fine en-
gravings for twenty-five cents."

Of patriotic poetry there was much for grown folks, but the
"Patriotic and Amatory Songster," advertised by S. Avery
of Boston about the time Weems's biography was published,
seems a title ill-suited to the juvenile public for whom Avery
professed to issue it.

Among the books which may be cited as furnishing in-
strudive amusement with less of the admixture of moral
purpose was the "London Cries for Children," with pidures
of street peddlers. This was imitated in America by the pub-
lication of the " Cries of New York " and " Cries of Phila-
delphia."

In the Lenox Colledion there is now one of the various
editions of the "Cries of New York" (published in 1808),
which is valuable both as a record of the street life of the
old-fashioned town of ninety-six thousand inhabitants, and
as perhaps the first child's book of purely local interest, with
original woodcuts very possibly designed and engraved by
Alexander Anderson.

The "Cries of New York" is of course modelled after the
"London Cries," but the account it gives of various incidents
in the daily life of old New York makes us grateful for the
existence of this child's toy. A pidure of a chimney-sweep,
for instance, is copied, with his cry of "Sweep, O, O, O, O,"
from the London book, but the text accompanying it is
altered to accord with the custom in New York of firing
a gun at dawn:

"About break of day, afi:er the morning gun is heard from

[ 180]

American Nursery

Governor's Island, and so through the forenoon, the ears of
the citizens are greeted with this uncouth sound from figures
as unpleasant to the sight, clothed in rags and covered with
soot — a necessary and suffering class of human beings indeed
— spending their childhood thus. And in regard to the un-
necessary bawling of those sooty boys; it is admirable in such
a noisy place as this, where every needless sound should be
hushed, that such disagreeable ones should be allowed. The
prices for sweeping chimneys are — one story houses twelve
cents; two stories, eighteen cents; three stories, twenty-five
cents, and so on."

"Hot Corn" was also cried by children, whose business it
was to "gather cents, by distributing corn to those who are
disposed to regale themselves with an ear." Baked pears are
pidured as sold "by a little black girl, with the pears in an
earthen dish under her arm." At the same season of the year,
"Here's your fine ripe water-melons" also made itself heard
above the street noises as a street cry of entirely American
origin. Again there were pidured " Oyster Stands," served by
negroes, and these were followed by cries of

"Fine Clams: choice Clams,
Here's your Rock-a-way beach
Clams: here's your fine
Young, sand Clams,"

fi-om Flushing Cove Bay, which the text explains, "turn out
as good, or perhaps better," than oysters. The introdudion
of negroes and negro children into the illustrations is alto-
gether a novelty, and together with the scenes drawn from
the street life of the town gave to the old-fashioned child its

[ i8i ]

Forgotten Books of the

first distindtly American pidure-book. Indeed, with the ex-
ception of this and an occasional illustration in some other-
wise English reprodudion, all the American publishers at
this time seem to have modelled their wares for small children
after those of two large London firms, J. Harris, successor to
Newbery, and William Darton.

To Darton, the author of "Little Truths," the children
were indebted for a serious attempt to improve the charader
of toy-books. A copper-plate engraver by profession, Barton's
attention was drawn to the scarcity of books for children by
the discovery that there was not much written for them that
was worth illustrating. Like Newbery, he set about to make
books himself, and with John Harvey, also an engraver, he
set up in Grace Church Street an establishment for printing
and publishing, from which he supplied, to a great extent, the
juvenile books closely imitated by American printers. Besides
his own compositions, he was very alert to encourage promis-
ing authors, and through him the famous verses of Jane and
Ann Taylor were brought into notice. "Original Poems," and
"Rhymes for the Nursery," by these sisters, were to the old-
time child what Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" is
to the modern nursery. Darton and Harvey paid ten pounds
for the first series of "Original Poems," and fifteen pounds for
the second; while "Rhymes for the Nursery" brought to its
authors the unusual sum of twenty pounds. The Taylors were
the originators of that long series of verses for infants which
"My Sister" and "My Governess" strove to surpass but never
in any way equalled, although they apparently met with a fair
sale in America.

^ [ 182 ]

Little Nancy

American Nursery

Enterprising American booksellers also copied the new
ways of advertising juvenile books. An instance of this is
afforded by Johnson and Warner of Philadelphia, who ap-
parently succeeded Jacob and Benjamin Johnson, and had,
by eighteen hundred and ten, branch shops in Richmond,
Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky. They advertised their
"neatly executed books of amusement" in book notes in the
"Young Gentlemen and Ladies' Magazine," by means of
digressions from the thread of their stories, and sometimes
by inserting as frontispiece a rhyme taken from one used by
John Harris of St. Paul's Churchyard :

"At JO — store in Market Street
A sure reward good children meet.
In coming home the other day
I heard a little master say
For ev'ry three-pence there he took
He had received a little book.
With covers neat and cuts so pretty
There's not its like in all the city;
And that for three-pence he could buy
A story book w^ould make one cry;
For little more a book of Riddles :
Then let us not buy drums and fiddles
Nor yet be stopped at pastry cooks',
But spend our money all in books;
For when we've learnt each bit by heart
Mamma will treat us with a tart."

Later, when engraving had become more general in use,
William Charles cut for an advertisement, as frontispiece to
some of his imprints, an interior scene containing a shelf of
books labelled " W. Charles' Library for Little Folks." About

[ 183]

Forgotten Books of the

the same time another form of advertisement came into use.
This was the publisher's Recommendation^ which frequently ac-
companied the narrative in place of a preface. The "Story of
Little Henry and his Bearer," by Mrs. Sherwood, a writer of
. many English Sunday-school tales, contained the announce-
ment that it was " fraught with much useful instrudion. It is
recommended as an excellent thing to be put in the hands
of children; and grown persons will find themselves well paid
for the trouble of reading it."
, Little Henry belonged to the Sunday-school type of hero,
one whose biography Dr. Holmes doubtless avoided when
possible. Yet no history of toy-books printed presumably
for children's amusement as well as instrudion should omit
' this favorite story, which represents all others of its class of
Religion-in-Play books. The following incidents are taken
from an edition printed by Lincoln and Edmunds of Boston.
This firm made a special feature of "Books suitable for Pres-
ents in Sunday-School." They sold wholesale for eight dollars
a hundred, such tales as Taylor's " Hymns for Infant Minds,"
"Friendly Instrudion," Fenelon's " Refledions," Doddridge's
" Principles of the Christian Religion," " Pleasures of Piety
in Youth," "Walks of Usefulness," "Pradical Piety," etc.

The objedive point of little Henry's melancholy history
was to prove the " Usefulness of Female Missionaries," said
its editor, Mrs. Cameron, a sister of the author, who at the
time was herself living in India. Mrs. Sherwood based the
thread of her story upon the life of a household in India,
but it winds itself mainly around the conversion of the
faithful Indian bearer who served five-year-old Henry. This

[ 184]

^J

H American Nursery

Hkmall orphan was one of those morbidly religious children
^Hrho "never said a bad word and was vexed when he heard
any other person do it." He also, although himself "saved
by grace," as the phrase then ran in evangelical circles, was
chronically anxious lest he should offend the Lord. To quote
verbatim from this relic of the former religious life would
savor too much of ridiculing those things that were sacred
and serious to the people of that day. Yet the main inci-
dents of the story were these: Henry's conversion took place
after a year and a half of hard work on the part of a mission-
ary, who finally had the satisfaction of bringing little Henry
"from the state of grossest heathen darkness and ignorance
to a competent knowledge of those dodrines necessary to
salvation." This was followed immediately by the offer of
Henry to give all his toys for a Bible with a purple morocco
cover. Then came the preparations for the teacher's departure,
when she called him to her room and catechized him in a
manner worthy of Cotton Mather a century before. After his
teacher's departure the boy, mindful of the lady's final ad-
monition, sought to make a Christian of his bearer, Boosy.
Like so many story-book parents, Henry's mother was alto-
gether negledful of her child; and consequently he was left
much to the care of Boosy — time which he improved with
"arguments with Boosy concerning the great Creator of
things." But it is not necessary to follow Henry through his
ardent missionary efforts to the admission of the black boy of
his sinful state, nor to the time when the hero was delivered
from this evil world. Enough has been said to show that the
religious child of fidion was not very different from little

[ 185 ]

^ Forgotten Books of the

Elizabeth Butcher or Hannah Hill of colonial days, whose
pious sayings were still read when "Little Henry" was in-
troduced to the American child.

Indeed, when Mrs. Sherwood's fiditious children were not
sufficiently religious to come up to the standard of five-year-
old Henry, their parents were invariably as pious as the father
of the "Fairchild Family." This was imported and reprinted
for more than one generation as a "best seller." It was almost
a modernized version of Jane way's "Token for Children,"
with Mather's supplement of "A Token for the Children of
New England," in its frequent produdion of death-bed scenes,
together with painful obje6t lessons upon the sinfulness of
every heart. To impress such lessons Mr. Fairchild spared
his family no sight of horror or distress. He even took
them to see a man on the gallows, "that," said the ingenuous
gentleman, "they may love each other with a perfed and \
heavenly love." As the children gazed upon the dreadful
objed the tender father described in detail its every phase, i
and ended by kneeling in prayer. The story of Evelyn in the \
third chapter was written as the result of a present of books
from an American Universalist^ whose dodrines Mrs. Sher-
wood thought likely to be pernicious to children and should
be controverted as soon as possible. Later, other things ema-
nating from America were considered injurious to children,
but this seems to be the first indication that American ideas
were noticed in English juvenile literature.

But all this lady's tales were not so lugubrious, and many
were immense favorites. Children were even named for the
hero of the "Little Millenium Boy." Publishers frequently

[ i86]

American Nursery

sent her orders for books to be "written to cuts," and the
"Busy Bee," the "Errand Boy," and the "Rose " were some of
the results of this method of supplying the demand for her
work. Naturally, Mrs. Sherwood, like Miss Edgeworth, had
many imitators, but if we could believe the incidents related
as true to life, parents would seem to have been either very
indifferent to their children or forever suspicious of them.
In Newbery's time it had been thought no sin to wear fine
buckled shoes, to be genteelly dressed with a wide " ribband ; "
but now the vain child was one who wore a white frock with
pink sash, towards whom the finger of scorn was pointed, and
from whom the moral was unfailingly drawn. Vanity was,
apparently, an unpardonable sin, as when in a "Moral Tale,"

" Mamma observed the rising lass
By stealth retiring to the glass
To pra6tise little arts unseen
In the true genius of thirteen."

The constant eflfort to draw a lesson from every a6tion some-
times led to overstepping the bounds of truth by the par-
ents themselves, as for example in a similar instance of love
for a mirror. "What is this I see, Harriet?" asked a mother in
" Emulation." " Is that the way you employ your precious
time? I am no longer surprised at the alteration in your looks
of late, that you have appeared so sickly, have lost your com-
plexion; in short I have twenty times been on the point of
asking you if you are ill. You look shockingly, child."

"I am very well. Mamma, indeed," cried Harriet, quite
alarmed.

" Impossible, my dear, you can never look well, while you

[ 187]

y

Forgotten Books

follow such an unwholesome pradice. Looking-glasses were
never intended for little girls, and very few sensible people
use them as there is something really poisonous in their com-
position. To use them is not only prejudicial to the health
but to the disposition."

Although this conception of the use of looking-glasses as
prejudicial to right living seems to hark back to the views
expressed in the old story of the " Prodigal Daughter," who sat
before a mirror when the Devil made his second appear-
ance, yet the world of story-book literature, even though its
creators were sometimes either careless or ignorant of fads,
now also emphasized the value of general knowledge, which
it endeavored to pour in increasing quantity into the nursery.
; Miss More had started the stream of goody-goody books,
^ while Miss Edge worth, Mrs. Barbauld, and Thomas Day were
I the originators of the deluge of conversational bores, babies,
j boys, and teachers that threatened to flood the family book- \
I shelves of America when the American writers for children '
( came upon the scene.

[ i88]

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

Old story-books! old story-books! we owe you much, old friends,
Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds

the ends.
Who can forget? Who can spurn the ministers of joy
That waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy?
Talk of your vellum, gold embossed, morocco, roan, and calf;
The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half.

Eliza Cooke

Their works of amusement, when not laden with more religion than
the tale can hold in solution, are often admirable.

Sluarterly RenjienjUy 1843

i

CHAPTER VII

1825-1840

American TVriters and English Critics

IT is customary to refer to the early writings of Wash-
ington Irving as works that marked the time when Htera-
ture pure and simple developed in America. Such writing
as had hitherto attraded attention concerned itself, not with
matters of the imagination, but with fads and theories of
current and momentous interest. Religion and the affairs
of the separate commonwealths were uppermost in people's
minds in colonial days; political warfare and the defence of
the policy of Congress absorbed attention in Revolutionary
times; and later the necessity of expounding principles of
government and of fostering a national feeling produced a
literature of fad rather than of fancy.

Gradually all this had changed. A new generation had
grown up with more leisure for writing and more time to de-
vote to the general culture of the public. The English periodi-
cal with its purpose of "improving the taste, awakening the
attention, and amending the heart," had once met these re-
quirements. Later on these periodicals had been keenly en-
joyed, but at the same time there appeared American maga-
zines, modelled after them, but largely filled by contributions
from literary Americans. Early in the nineteenth century such
publications were current in most large towns. From the
short essays and papers in these periodicals to the tales of
Cooper and Irving the step, after all, was not a long one.

The children's literature of amusement developed, after the

[ 191]

Forgotten Books of the

end of the eighteenth century, in a somewhat similar way,
although as usual tagging along after that of their parents.

With the constantly increasing population the produdion
of children's books grew more profitable, and in eighteen hun-
dred and two Benjamin Johnson made an attempt to pub-
lish a "Juvenile Magazine" in Philadelphia. Its purpose was
to be a "Miscellaneous Repository of Useful Information;"
but the contents were so largely drawn from English sources
that it was probably, like the toy-books, pirated from an
English publisher. Indeed, one of the few extant volumes
contains only one article of distindly American composition
among essays on Education^ the Choice of a Wife^ Love, papers
on natural history, seledions from poems by Coleridge and
Cowper; and by anonymous makers of verse about Consump-
tion and Friendship. The American contribution, a discussion
of President Washington's will, has already been mentioned.

In the same year, 1802, the "Juvenile Olio" was started,-
edited by "Amyntor," but like Johnson's "Juvenile Maga-
zine," was only issued at irregular intervals and was short-lived.

Other ventures in children's periodicals continued to be
made, however. The "Juvenile Magazine," with "Religious,
Moral, and Entertaining Pieces in Prose and Verse," was com-
piled by Arthur Donaldson, and sold in eighteen hundred
and eleven as a monthly in Philadelphia — then the literary
centre — for twelve and a half cents a number. In eighteen
hundred and thirteen, in the same city, the "Juvenile Port-
folio" made its appearance, possibly in imitation of Joseph
Dennie's "Port Folio;" but it too failed from lack of sup-
port and interest.

[ 192 ]

/

American Nursery

Boston proved more successful in arousing attention to
the possibilities in a well-conduded children's periodical, al-
though it was not until thirteen years later that Lydia Maria
Child established the "Juvenile Miscellany for the Instruc-
tion and Amusement of Youth." Three numbers were issued
in 1826, and thereafter it appeared every other month until
August, 1834, when it was succeeded by a magazine of the
same name conducted by Sarah J. Hale.

This periodical is a landmark in the history of story-writing
for the American child. Here at last was an opportunity for
the editors to give to their subscribers descriptions of cities
in their own land in place of accounts of palaces in Persia;
biographies of national heroes instead of incidents in the life
of Mahomet; and tales of Indians rather than histories of
Arabians and Turks. For its pages Mrs. Sigourney, Miss Eliza ■
Leslie, Mrs. Wells, Miss Sedgwick, and numerous anonymous
contributors gladly sent stories of American scenes and inci-
dents which were welcomed by parents as well as by children. |

In the year following the first appearance of Mrs. Hale's
"Juvenile Miscellany," the March number is typical of the
amusement and instrudion the editor endeavored to provide.
This contained a life of Benjamin Franklin (perhaps the
earliest child's life of the philosopher and statesman), a tale
of an Indian massacre of an entire settlement in Maine, an
essay on memory, a religious episode, and extrads from a
traveller's journal. The traveller, quite evidently a Bostonian,
criticised New York in a way not unfamiliar in later days,
as a city where "the love of literature was less strong than
in some other parts of the United States;" and then in trying

[ 193 ]

Forgotten Books of the

to soften the statement, she fell into a comparison with Phila-
delphia, also made many times since the gentle critic observed
the difference. "New York," she wrote, "has energy, spirit,
and bold, lofty enterprise, totally wanting in Philadelphia,
... a place of neat, well regulated plans." Also, like the Eng-
lish story-book of the previous century, this American "Mis-
cellany" introduced Maxims for a Student^ found, it cheerfully
explained, " among the manuscripts of a deceased friend."
Puzzles and conundrums made an entertaining feature, and
as the literary chef d'ceuvre was inserted a poem supposed to
be composed by a babe in South Carolina, but of which the
author was undoubtedly Mrs. Oilman, whose ideas of a baby's
ability were certainly not drawn from her own nursery,
j A rival to the "Juvenile Miscellany" was the "Youth's
I Companion," established at this time in Boston by Nathaniel
P. Willis and the Reverend Asa Rand. The various religious
societies also began to issue children's magazines for Sunday
perusal : the Massachusetts Sunday School Union beginning
in 1828 the " Sabbath School Times," and other societies soon
following its example.

"Parley's Magazine," planned by Samuel G. Goodrich and
published by Lilly, Wait and Company of Boston, ran a suc-
I cessful course of nine years from eighteen hundred and thirty-
three. The prospe6lus declared the intention of its condudors
"to give descriptions of manners, customs, and countries.
Travels, Voyages, and Adventures in Various parts of the
world, interesting historical notes. Biography, particularly of
young persons, original tales, cheerful and pleasing Rhymes,
and to issue the magazine every fortnight." The popularity of

[ 194 ]

American Nursery

the name of Peter Parley insured a goodly number of sub-
scriptions from the beginning, and the life of "Parley's Mag-
azine " was somewhat longer than any of its predecessors.

In the south the idea of issuing a juvenile magazine was
taken up by a firm in Charleston, and the "Rose Bud" was
started in eighteen hundred and thirty. The "Rose Bud," a
weekly, was largely the result of the success of the "Juvenile
Miscellany," as the editor of the southern paper, Mrs. Gilman,
was a valued contributor to the " Miscellany," and had been
encouraged in her plan of a paper for children of the south
by the Boston condudors of the northern periodical.

Mrs. Gilman was born in Boston, and at sixteen years
of age had published a poem most favorably criticised at
the time. Marrying a clergyman who settled in Charleston,
she continued her literary work, but was best known to our
grandmothers as the author of " Recolledions of a New Eng-
land Housekeeper." The "Rose Bud" soon blossomed into
the "Southern Rose," a family paper, but faded away in 1839.

Among other juvenile weeklies of the time may be men-
tioned the "Juvenile Rambler" and the "Hive," which are
chiefly interesting by reason of the opportunity their columns
offered to youthful contributors.

Another series of " miscellaneous repositories" for the in-
strudive enjoyment of little people was furnished by the
Annuals of the period. These, of course, were modelled after
the adult Annuals revolving in social circles and adorning the
marble-topped tables of drawing-rooms in both England and
America.

Issued at the Christmas and New Year seasons, these chil-

[ 195 ]

J

Forgotten Books of the

dren's Annuals formed the conventional gift-book for many
years, and publishers spared no effort to make them attrac-
tive. Indeed, their red morocco, silk, or embossed scarlet
cloth bindings form a cheerful contrast to the dreary array
of black and drab cloth covering the fidion of both old and
young. Better illustrations were also introduced than the ugly
cuts "adorning" the other books for juvenile readers. Oliver
Pelton, Joseph Andrews (who ranked well as an engraver),
Elisha Gallaudet, Joseph G. Kellogg, Joseph I. Pease, and
Thomas Illman were among the workers in line-engraving
whose early work served to illustrate, often delightfully,
these popular colle6tions of children's stories.

Among the "Annualettes," "Keepsakes," "Evening Hours,"
and "Infant's Hours" published at intervals after eighteen hun-
dred and twenty-five the "Token" stands preeminent. Edited
by Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley) between the years
eighteen hundred and twenty-eight and eighteen hundred and
forty-two, its contents and illustrations were almost entirely
American. Edward Everett, Bishop Doane, A. H. Everett,
John Quincy Adams, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Miss Sedg-
wick, Eliza Leslie, Dr. Holmes, Horace Greeley, James T.
Fields, and Gulian Verplanck — all were called upon to make
the "Token" an annual treat to children. Of the many stories
written for it, only Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" sur-
vive ; but the long list of contributors of mark in American
literature cannot be surpassed to-day by any child's book by
contemporary authors. The contents, although written in the
style of eighty years ago, are undoubtedly good from a lit-
erary standpoint, however out of date their story-telling quali-

[ 196]

Children of the Cottage

American Nursery

ties maybe. And, moreover, the "Token" assuredly gave plea-
sure to the pubHc for which its yearly publication was made.

By eighteen hundred and thirty-five the "Annual" was in
fiill swing as a popular publication. Then an international
book was issued, "The American Juvenile Keepsake," edited
by Mrs. Hofland, the well-known writer of English stories
for children. Mrs. Hofland cried up her wares in a manner
quite different from that of the earlier literary ladies. "My
table of contents," she wrote in her introdudion, "exhibits a
list of names not exceeded in reputation by any preceding
Juvenile Annual; for, although got up with a celerity almost
distressing in the hurry it imposed, such has been the kind-
ness of my literary friends, that they have left me little more
to wish for." Among the English contributors were Miss Mit-
ford, Miss Jean Roberts, Miss Browne, and Mrs. Hall, the
ablest writers for English children, and already familiar to
American households.

Mrs. Hofland, herself, wrote one of its stories, noteworthy
as an early attempt of an English author to write for an Ameri-
can juvenile public. She found her theme in the movement
of emigration strong in England just then among the laboring
people. No amount of discouragement and bitter criticism
of the United States by the British press was sufficient to
stem appreciably the tide of laborers that flowed towards the
country whence came information of better wages and more
work. Mrs. Hofland, although writing for little Americans,
could not wholly resist the customary fling at American life
and society. She acknowledged, however, that long residence
altered first impressions and brought out the kernel of Ameri-

[ ^97 ]

Forgotten Booh of the

can charader, whose husk only was visible to sojourners. She
deplored the fad that "gay English girls used only to the
polished society of London were likely to return with the im-
pression that the men were rude and women frivolous." This
impression the author was inclined to believe unjust, yet
deemed it wise, because of the incredulous (perhaps even
in America!), to back her own opinion by a note saying that
this view was also shared by a valued friend who had lived
fourteen years in Raleigh, South Carolina.

Having thus done justice, in her own eyes, to conditions in
the new country, Mrs. Hofland, launched the laborer's family
upon the sea, and followed their travels from New York to
Lexington, Kentucky, at that time a land unknown to the
average American child beyond some hazy association with
the name of Daniel Boone. It was thus comparatively safe
ground on which to place the struggles of the immigrants,
who prospered because of their English thrift and were an
example to the former residents. Of course the son grew up to
prove a blessing to the community, and eventually, like the
heroes in old Isaiah Thomas's adaptations of Newbery's good
boys, was chosen Congressman.

There is another point of interest in connexion with this
English author's tale. Whether consciously or not, it is a very
good imitation of Peter Parley's method of travelling with
his charaders in various lands or over new country. It is, per-
haps, the first instance in the history of children's literature
of an American story-writer influencing the English writer
of juvenile fidion. And it was not the only time. So popular
and profitable did Goodrich's style of story become that some-

[ 198]

American Nursery

what later the frequent attempts to exploit anonymously and
profitably his pseudonymn in England as well as in America
were loudly lamented by the originator of the "Tales of Peter
Parley." It is, moreover, suggestive of the gradual change in
the relations between the two countries that anything written
in America was thought worth imitating. America, indeed,
was beginning to supply incidents around which to weave
stories for British children and tales altogether made at home
for her own little readers.

In the same volume Mrs. S. C. Hall also boldly attempted
to place her heroine in American surroundings. Philadelphia
was the scene chosen for her tale ; but, having flattered her
readers by this concession to their sympathies and interest,
the author was still sufficiently insular to doubt the existence
of a competent local physician in this the earliest medical
centre in the United States. An English family had come to
make their home in the city, where the mother's illness ne-
cessitated the attendance of a French dodor to make a cor-
red diagnosis of her case. An operation was advised, which
the mother, Mrs. Allen, hesitated to undergo in an unknown
land. Emily, the fourteen-year-old daughter, urged her not
to delay, as she felt quite competent to be in attendance,
having had "five teeth drawn without screaming; nursed a
brother through the whooping-cough and a sister through the
measles."

"Ma foi, Mademoiselle," said the French dodor, "you are
very heroic; why, let me see, you talk of being present at an
operation, which I would not hardly suffer my junior pupils to
attend."

[ 199 ]

Forgotten Books of the

"Put," said the heroic damsel, "my resolution, sir, to any
test you please ; draw one, two, three teeth, I will not flinch."
And this courage the writer thought could not be surpassed
in a London child. It is needless to say that Emily's fortitude
was sufficient to endure the sight of her mother's suffering,
and to nurse her to complete recovery. Evidently residence
in America had not yet sapped the young girl's moral strength,
or reduced her to the frivolous creature an American woman
was reputed in England to be.

Among the home contributors to " The American Juvenile
Keepsake " were William L. Stone, who wrote a prosy arti-
cle about animals; and Mrs. Embury, called the Mitford of
America (because of her stories of village life), who furnished
a religious tale to controvert the infidel dodrines considered
at the time subtly undermining to childish faith, with prob-
able reference to the Unitarian movement then gaining many
adherents. Mrs. Embury's stories were so generally gloomy,
being strongly tinged with the melancholy religious views of
certain church denominations, that one would suppose them
to have been eminently successful in turning children away
from the faith she sought to encourage. For this "Keepsake "
the same lady let her poetical fancy take flight in "The Re-
membrance of Youth is a Sigh," a somewhat lugubrious and
pessimistic subjed for a child's Christmas Annual. Occasion-
ally a more cheerful mood possessed "lanthe," as she chose
to call herself, and then we have some of the earliest descrip-
tions of country life in literature for American children. There
is one especially charming pidure of a walk in New England
woods upon a crisp Odober day, when the children merrily

[ 200 ]

Henrietta

'IJ

American Nursery

hunt for chestnuts among the dry brown leaves, and the squir-
rels play above their heads in the many colored boughs.

Dr. Holmes has somewhere remarked upon the total lack of
American nature descriptions in the literature of his boyhood.
No birds familiar to him were ever mentioned; nor were
the flowers such as a New England child could ever gather.
Only English larks and linnets, cowslips and hawthorn, were
to be found in the toy-books and little histories read to him.
"Everything was British: even the robin, a domestic bird,"
wrote the doctor, "instead of a great fidgety, jerky, whooping
thrush." But when Peter Parley, Jacob Abbott, Lydia Maria
Child, Mrs. Embury, and Eliza Leslie began to write short
stories, the Annuals and periodicals abounded in American
scenes and local color. '

There was also another great incentive for writers to work
for children. This was the demand made for stories from the
American Sunday School Union, whose influence upon the
charader of juvenile literature was a force bearing upon /
the various writers, and whose growth was coincident with
the development of the children's periodical literature.

The American Sunday School Union, an outgrowth of the
several religious publication societies, in eighteen hundred
and twenty-four began to do more extensive work, and there-
fore formed a committee to judge and pronounce upon all
manuscripts, which American writers were asked to submit.

The sessions of the Sunday-schools were no longer held for
illiterate children only. The younger members of each parish
or church were found upon its benches each Sunday morning
or afternoon. To promote and to impress the religious teach-

[ 201 ]

Forgotten Books of the

ing in these schools, rewards were offered for well-prepared
lessons and regular attendance. Also the scholars were en-
couraged to use the Sunday-school library. For these different
purposes many books were needed, but naturally only those
stamped with the approval of the clergyman in charge were
circulated.

The board of publication appointed by the American
Sunday School Union — composed chiefly of clergymen of
certain denominations — passed upon the merits of the many
manuscripts sent in by piously inclined persons, and edited
such of them as proved acceptable. The marginal notes on the
pages of the first edition of an old Sunday-school favorite bear
witness to the painstaking care of the editors that the leaflets,
trads, and stories poured in from all parts of the country
should "shine by reason of the truth contained," and "avoid
the least appearance, the most indired insinuations, of any-
thing which can militate against the stridest ideas of pro-
priety." The tales had also to keep absolutely within the
bounds of religion. Many were the stories found lacking in
dired religious teaching, or returned because religion was
not vitally conneded with the plot, to be rewritten or sent
elsewhere for publication.

The hundreds of stories turned out in what soon became
a mechanical fashion were of two patterns: the one of the
good child, a constant attendant upon Sabbath School and
Divine Worship, but who died young after converting par-
ent or worldly friend during a painful illness; the other of
the unregenerate youth, who turned away from the godly
admonition of mother and clergyman, refused to attend Sun-

[ 202 ]

J

American Nursery

day-school, and consequently fell into evil ways leading to
the thief's or drunkard's grave. Often a sick mother was
introduced to claim emotional attention, or to use as a lay
figure upon which to drape Scripture texts as fearful warnings
to the black sheep of the family. Indeed, the little reader no
sooner began to enjoy the tale of some sweet and gentle girl,
or to delight in the mischievous boy, than he was called upon
to refled that early piety portended an early death, and
youthful pranks led to a miserable old age. Neither prosped
offered much encouragement to hope for a happy life, and
from conversations with those brought up on this form of
religious culture, it is certain that if a child escaped without
becoming morbid and neurotic, there were dark and secret
resolves to risk the unpleasant future in favor of a happy
present.

The stories, too, presented a somewhat paradoxical famil-
iarity with the ways of a mysterious Providence. This was
exceedingly perplexing to the thoughtful child, whose que-
ries as to justice were too often hushed by parent or teacher.
In real life, every child expeded, even if he did not receive,
a tangible reward for doing the right thing; but Providence,
according to these authors, immediately caused a good child
to become ill unto death. It is not a matter for surprise that
the healthy-minded, vigorous child often turned in disgust
from the Sunday-school library to search for Cooper's tales
of adventure on his father's book-shelves.

The corred and approved child's story, even if not issued
under religious auspices, was thoroughly saturated with reli-
gion. Whatever may have been the pradice of parents in

[ 203 ]

Ji

u^'u

Forgotten Books of the

regard to their own reading, they wished that of the nursery
to show not only an educational and moral, but a religious
tendency. The books for American children therefore divided
» themselves into three classes: the denominational story, to set
forth the do6trines of one church; the educational tale; and
the moral narrative of American life.

The denominational stories produced by the several Sun-
day-school societies were, as has been said, only a kind of
scaffolding upon which to build the teachings of the various
churches. But their sale was enormous, and a fador to be
reckoned with because of their influence upon the educa-
tional and moral tales of their period. By eighteen hundred
and twenty-seven, fifty-thousand books and trads had been
sent out by one Sunday-school society alone.* There are few
things more remarkable in the history of juvenile literature
than the growth of the business of the American Sunday School
Union. By eighteen hundred and twenty-eight it had issued
over seven hundred of these religious trifles, varying from a
sixteen-page duodecimo to a small odavo volume ; and most
of these appear to have been written by Americans trying
their inexperienced pens upon a form of literature not then
recognized as difficult. The influence of such a flood of tiny
books could hardly have been other than morbid, although
occasionally there floated down the stream duodecimos which
were grasped by little readers with eagerness. Such volumes,
one reader of bygone Sunday-school books tells us, glimmered
from the dark depths of death and prison scenes, and were
passed along with whispered recommendation until their well-

* EleBion Day^ P« 71- American Sunday School Union, 1828.

[ 204 ]

J

American Nursery

worn covers attraded the eye of the teacher, and were quickly-
found to be missing from Hbrary shelves. Others were com-
mended in their stead, such as described the city boy showing
the country cousin the town sights, with most edifying con-
versation as to their history; or, again, amusement of a light
and alluring charader was presumably to be found in the
story of a little maid who sat upon a footstool at her mother's
knee, and while she hemmed the four sides of a handkerchief,
listened to the account of missionary enterprises in the dark
corners of the earth.

To us of to-day the small illustrations are perhaps the most
interesting feature, preserving as they do children's occupa-
tions and costumes. In one book we see quaintly frocked and
pantaletted girls and much buttoned boys in Sunday-school.
In another, entitled "EledionDay,"are pidured two little lads
watching, from the square in front of Independence Hall, the
handing in of votes for the President through a window of
the famous building — a pidure that emphasizes the change
in methods of casting the ballot since eighteen hundred and
twenty-eight.

That engravers were not always successful when called
upon to embellish the pages of the Sunday-school books, many
of them easily prove. That the designers of woodcuts were
sometimes lacking in imagination when obliged to depid
Bible verses can have no better example than the favorite
vignette on title-pages portraying "My soul doth magnify the
Lord" as a man with a magnifying glass held over a blank
space. Perhaps equal in lack of imagination was the often
repeated frontispiece of "Mercy streaming from the Cross,"

[ 205 ]

Forgotten Books of the

illustrated by a large cross with an effulgent rain beating
upon the luxuriant tresses of a languishing lady. There were
many pidures but little art in the old-fashioned Sunday-
school library books.

It was in Philadelphia that one of the first, if not the first
4 children's library was incorporated in 1 827 as the Apprentices'
Library. Eleven years later this library contained more than
I two thousand books, and had seven hundred children as
' patrons. The catalogue of that year is indicative of the pre-
valence of the Sunday-school book. "Adventures of Lot"
precedes the "Affedionate Daughter-in-Law," which is fol-
lowed by "Anecdotes of Christian Missions" and "An Alarm
to Unconverted Sinners." Turning the yellowed pages, we
find "Hannah Swanton, the Casco Captive," histories of Bible
worthies, the "Infidel Class," "Little Deceiver Reclaimed,"
" Letters to Little Children," "Juvenile Piety," and " Julianna
Oakley." The bookish child of this decade could not escape
from the "Reformed Family" and the consumptive little
Christian, except by taking refuge in the parents' novels,
colledions of the British poets and essayists, and the con-
stantly increasing American writings for adults. Perhaps in
this way the Sunday-school books may be counted among that
long list of such things as are commonly called blessings in
disguise.

Aside from the stridly religious tale, the contents of the now
considerable output of Harper and Brothers, Mahlon Day,
Samuel Wood and Sons of New York; Cottons and Barn-
ard, Lincoln and Edmunds, Lilly, Wait and Company, Mun-
roe and Francis of Boston; Matthew Carey, Conrad and Par-

[ 206 ]

ji Child and her Doll

J

American Nursery

sons, Morgan and Sons, and Thomas T. Ashe of Philadel-
phia— to mention but a few of the publishers of juvenile
novelties — are convincing proof that booksellers catered to
the demand for stories with a strong religious bias. The "New
York Weekly," indeed, called attention to Day's books as
"maintaining an unbroken tendency to virtue and piety."

When not impossibly pious, these children of anonymous
fidion were either insufferable prigs with a steel moral code,
or so ill-bred as to be equally impossible and unnatural. The
favorite plan of their creators was to follow Miss Edge worth's
device of contrasting the good and naughty infant. The chil-
dren, too, were often cousins: one, for example, was the son
of a gentleman who in his choice of a wife was influenced by
strid religious principles; the other boy inherited his dispo-
sition from his mother, a lady of bland manners and fine ex-
ternal appearance, but who failed to establish in her offspring
"corred principles of virtue, religion, and morality." The
author paused at this point in the narrative to discuss the
frailties of the lady, before resuming its slender thread. Who
to-day could wade through with children the good-goody
books of that generation?

Happily, many of the writers for little ones chose to be
unknown, for it would be ungenerous to disparage by name
these ladies who considered their produdions edifying, and
in their ingenuousness never dreamed that their stories were
devoid of every quality that makes a child's book of value
to the child. They were literally unconscious that their tales
lacked that simplicity and diredness in style, and they them-
selves that knowledge of human nature, absolutely necessary

[ 207 ]

\J

Forgotten Books of the

to constru6i: a pleasing and profitable story. The watchwords
of these painstaking ladies were "religion, virtue, and moral-
ity," and heedless of everything else, they found oblivion in
most cases before they gained recognition from the public
they longed to influence.

The decade following eighteen hundred and thirty brought
prominently to the foreground six American authors among
the many who occasioned brief notice. Of these writers two
were men and four were women. Jacob Abbott and Samuel
G. Goodrich wrote the educational tales, Abbott largely for
the nursery, while Goodrich devoted his attention mainly
to books for the little lads at school. The four women, Mrs.
Sarah J. Hale, Miss Eliza Leslie, Miss Catharine Sedgwick,
and Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, wrote mainly for girls, and
took American life as their subjed. Mrs. Hale wrote much
for adults, but when editor of the "Juvenile Miscellany," she
made various contributions to it. Yet to-day we know her
only by one of her " Poems for Children," published in Boston
in eighteen hundred and thirty — "Mary had a Little Lamb."

Mary's lamb has travelled much farther than to school, and
has even reached that point when its authorship has been
disputed. Quite recently in the " Century Magazine " Mrs.
Hale's claim to its composition has been set forth at some
length by Mr. Richard W. Hale, who shows clearly her de-
sire when more than ninety years of age to be recognized
as the originator of these verses. In fad, "shortly before her
death," wrote Mr. Hale, "she direded her son to write em-
phatically that every poem in her book of eighteen hundred
and thirty was of her own composition." Although rarely

[ 208 ]

American Nursery

seen in print, "Mary had a Little Lamb" has outlived all other
nursery rhymes of its day; perhaps because it had most truly
the quality, unusual at the time, of being told diredly and
simply — a quality, indeed, that appeals to every generation.

Miss Leslie, like Mrs. Hale, did much editing, beginning
on adult gift-books and colledions of housewife's receipts,
and then giving most of her attention to juvenile literature.
As editor Miss Leslie did good work on the "Violet" and
the " Pearl," both gift-books for children. She also abridged,
edited, and rewrote " The Wonderful Traveller," and the
adventures of Munchausen, Gulliver, and Sindbad, heroes
often disregarded by this period of lack of imagination and
over-supply of educational theories. Also, as a writer of sto-
ries for little girls and school-maidens, Eliza Leslie met with
warm approval on both sides of the Atlantic.

Undoubtedly the success of EHza Leslie's "American Girls'
Book," modelled after the English "Boy's Own Book," and
published in 1831, added to the popularity attained by her
earlier work, although of this she was but the compiler.

The "American Girls' Book " was intended for little girls,
and by dialogue, the prevailing mode of conveying instruc-
tion or amusement, numerous games and plays were described.
Already many of the pastimes have gone out of fashion. "Lady
Queen Anne " and "Robin 's Alive," "a dangerous game with
a lighted stick," are altogether unknown; "Track the Rabbit"
has changed its name to "Fox and Geese;" "Hot Buttered
Beans" has found a substitute in "Hunt the Thimble;" and
" Stir the Mush " has given place to "Going to Jerusalem."

But Miss Leslie did more than preserve for us these old-

[ 209 ]

Forgotten Books of the

fashioned games. She has left sketches of children's ways and
nature in her various stories for little people. She shared, of
course, in the habit of moralizing charaderistic of her day,
but her children are childish, and her heroines are full of the
whims, and have truly the pleasures and natural emotions,
of real children.

Miss Leslie began her work for children in eighteen hundred
and twenty-seven, when "Atlantic Stories" were published,
and as her sketches of child-life appeared one after another,
her pen grew more sure in its delineation of charaders and her
talent was speedily recognized. Even now " Birthday Stories "
are worth reading and treasuring because of the pidures
of family life eighty years ago. The " Souvenir," for exam-
ple, is a Christmas tale of old Philadelphia; the "Cadet's
Sister" sketches life at West Point, where the author's brother
had been a student; while the "Launch of the Frigate" and
"Anthony and Clara" tell of customs and amusements quite
passed away. The charming description of children shopping
for their simple Christmas gifts, the narrative of the boys who
paid a poor lad in a bookstore to ornament their "writing-
pieces" for more "respedable presents" to parents, the quiet
celebration of the day itself, can ill be spared from the his-
tory of child life and diversions in America. It is well to be
reminded, in these days of complex and expensive amuse-
ments, of some of the saner and simpler pleasures enjoyed
by children in Miss Leslie's lifetime.

All of this writer's books, moreover, have some real inter-
est, whether it be " Althea Vernon," with the description of
summer life and fashions at Far Rockaway (New York's Man-

[ 210 ]

American Nursery

hattan Beach of 1830), or "Henrietta Harrison," with its sar-
-castic reference to the fashionable school where the pupils
could sing French songs and Italian operas, but could not be
sure of the notes of " Hail Columbia." Or again, the account
is worth reading of the heroine's trip to New York from Phila-
delphia. "Simply habited in a plaid silk frock and Thibet
shawl," little Henrietta starts, under her uncle's protedion, at
five o'clock in the morning to take the boat for Bordentown,
New Jersey. There she has her first experience of a railway
train, and looks out of the window "at all the velocity of the
train will allow her to see." At Heightstown small children
meet the train with fruit and cakes to sell to hungry travel-
lers. And finally comes the wonderful voyage from Amboy to
the Battery in New York, which is not reached until night
has fallen.

This is the simple explanation as to why Eliza Leslie's
books met with so generous a reception: they were full of the
incidents which children love, and unusually free from the
afFedations of the pious fiditious heroine.

The stories of Miss Catharine Sedgwick also received most
favorable criticism, and in point of style were certainly better
than Miss Leslie's. Her reputation as a literary woman was
more than national, and "Redwood," one of her best novels,
was attributed in France to Fenimore Cooper, when it ap-
peared anonymously in eighteen hundred and twenty-four.
Miss Sedgwick's novels, however, pass out of nursery com-
prehension in the first chapters, although these were full of a
healthy New England atmosphere, with coasting parties and
picnics, Indians and gypsies, nowhere else better described.

[211 ]

^"^ Forgotten Books of the

The same tone pervades her contributions to the "Juvenile
Miscellany," the "Token," and the "Youth's Keepsake," to-
gether with her best-known children's books, "Stories for
Children," "A Well Spent Hour," and "A Love Token for
Children."

In contrast to Mrs. Sherwood's still popular "Fairchild
Family," Catharine Sedgwick's stories breathe a sunny, in-
vigorating atmosphere, abounding in local incidents, and
vigorous in delineation of types then plentiful in New Eng-
land. " She has fallen," wrote one admirer, most truthfully, in
the "North American Review" of 1827, — "she has fallen
upon the view, from which the treasures of our future liter-
ature are to be wrought. A literature to have real freshness
must be moulded by the influences of the society where it
had its origin. Letters thrive, when they are at home in the
soil. Miss Sedgwick's imaginations have such vigor and bloom
because they are not exotics." Another reviewer, aroused by
English criticism of the social life in America, and full of
the much vaunted theory that "all men are equal," rejoiced
in the author's attitude towards the so-called "help" in New
England families in contrast to Miss More's portrayal of the
I English child's condescension towards inferiors, which he
thought unsuitable to set before the children in America.
All Miss Sedgwick's stories were the produd of her own
I Ikeen intelligence and observation, and not written in imita-
\ kion of Miss More, Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Sherwood, as
were the anonymous tales of "Little Lucy; or, the Pleasant
Day," or " Little Helen; a Day in the Life of a Naughty Girl."
They preached, indeed, at length, but the preaching could

[ 212 ]

American Nursery

be skipped by interested readers, and unlike the work of many
contemporaries, there was always a thread to take up.

Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, another favorite contributor to
magazines, colleded her "Poetry for Children" into a volume
bearing this title, in eighteen hundred and thirty-four, and
published " Tales and Essays " in the same year. These were
followed two years later by "Olive Buds," and thereafter
at intervals she brought out several other books, none of
which have now any interest except as examples of juvenile
literature that had once a decided vogue and could safely
be bought for the Sunday-school library.

The names of Mrs. Anna M. Wells, Mrs. Frances S. Os-
good, Mrs. Farrar, Mrs. Eliza L. Follen, and Mrs. Seba
Smith were all well beloved by children eighty years ago,
and their writings, if long since lost sight of, at least added
their quota to the children's publications which were dis-
tindly American.

If the quantity of books sold is any indication of the popu-
larity of an author's work, nothing produced by any of these
ladies is to be compared with the "Tales of Peter Parley"
and the "Rollo Books" of Jacob Abbott. '

The tendency to instrud while endeavoring to entertain
was remodelled by these men, who in after years had a host
of imitators. Great visions of good to children had overtaken
dreams of making children good, with the result that Wil-
liam Barton's conversational method of instrudion was com-
pounded with Miss Edgeworth's educational theories and
elaborated after the manner of Hannah More. Samuel Good-
rich, at least, confessed that his many tales were the dired

[ 213 ]

^I

Forgotten Books of the

result of a conversation with Miss More, whom, because of
his admiration for her books, he made an effort to meet when
in England in eighteen hundred and twenty-three. While talk-
ing with the old lady about her " Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,"
the idea came to Mr. Goodrich that he, himself, might write
for American children and make good use of her method of
introducing much detail in description. As a child he had not
found the few toy-books within his reach either amusing
or interesting, with the exception of this Englishwoman's
writings. He resolved that the growing generation should
be better served, but little dreamed of the unprecedented suc-
cess, as far as popularity was concerned, that the result of his
determination would prove.

After his return to America, the immediate favorable re-
ception of the " Token," under Goodrich's diredion, led to
the publication in the same year (1828) of "Peter Parley's
Tales about America," followed by "Tales about Europe."
At this date of retrospedion the first volume seems in many
ways the best of any of the numerous books by the same
author. The boy hero, taken as a child companion upon a
journey through several states, met with adventures among
Indians upon the frontiers, and saw places of historical sig-
nificance. Every incident is told in imitation of Miss More,
with that detailed description which Goodrich had found
so fascinating. If a little overdone in this resped, the narra-
tive has certainly a freshness sadly deficient in many later
volumes. Even the second tale seems to lack the engaging
spontaneity of the first, and already to grow didadic and re-
citative rather than personal. But both met with an equally

[214]

American Nursery

generous and appreciative reception. Parley's educational
tales were undoubtedly the American pioneers in what may
be readily styled the "travelogue " manner used in later years
by Elbridge Brooks and many other writers for little people.
These early attempts of Parley's to educate the young reader
were followed by one hundred others, which sold like hot
cakes. Of some tales the sales reached a total of fifty thousand
in one year, while it is estimated that seven million of Peter
Parley's "Histories" and "Tales" were sold before the admi-
ration of their style and qualities waned.

Peter Parley took his heroes far afield. Jacob Abbott adopted
another plan of instrudion in the majority of his books. Be-
ginning in eighteen hundred and thirty-four with the "Young
Christian Series," the Reverend Mr. Abbott soon had readers
in England, Scotland, Germany, France, Holland, and India,
where many of his volumes were translated and republished.
In the "Rollo Books" and "Franconia" an attempt was made
to answer many of the questions that children of each century
pour out to astonish and confound their elders. The child reader
saw nothing incongruous in the remarkable wisdom and ma-
turity of Mary Bell and Beechnut, who could give advice and
information with equal glibness. The advice, moreover, was
often worth following, and the knowledge occasionally worth
having; and the little one swallowed chunks of morals and
morsels of learning without realizing that he was doing so.
Most of both was speedily forgotten, but many adults in after
years were unconsciously indebted to Goodrich and Abbott
for some familiarity with foreign countries, some interest in
natural science.

[215]

Forgotten Books of the

Notwithstanding the immense demand for American stories,
there was fortunately still some doubt as to whether this re-
modelled form of instrudive amusement and moral story-
book literature did not lack certain wholesome features char-
acteristic of the days when fairies and folklore, and Newbery's
gilt volumes, had plenty of room on the nursery table. " I can-
not very well tell," wrote the editor of the "Fairy Book"*
in 1836, — "I cannot very well tell why it is that the good
old histories and tales, which used to be given to young
people for their amusement and instruction, as soon as they
could read, have of late years gone quite out of fashion in this
country. Informer days there was a worthy English bookseller,
one Mr. Newbery, who used to print thousands of nice little
volumes of such stories, which, as he solemnly declared in
print in the books themselves, he gave away to all little boys
and girls, charging them only a sixpenny for the gold covers.
These of course no one could be so unreasonable as to wish
him to furnish at his own expense. . . . Yet in the last gen-
eration, American boys and girls (the fathers and mothers,
grandfathers and grandmothers of the present generation)
were not wholly dependent upon Mr. Newbery of St. Paul's
church-yard, though they knew him well and loved him much.
The great Benjamin Franklin, when a printer in Philadelphia,
did not disdain to print divers of Newbery's books adorned
with cuts in the likeness of his, though it must be confessed
somewhat inferior, f Yet rude as they were, they were prob-
ably the first things in the way of pidures that West and

* Mr. G. C. Verplanck was probably the editor of this book, published by Harper & Bros,
f This statement the writer has been unable to verify,

[216]

American Nursery

Copley ever beheld, and so instilled into those future painters,
the rudiments of that art by which they afterwards became
so eminent themselves, and conferred such honour upon their
native country. In somewhat later time there were the worthy
Hugh Gaine, at the Sign of the Bible and Crown in Pearl
street, and the patriotic Samuel Loudon, and the genuine
and unadulterated New Yorker, Evert Duyckinck, besides
others in Boston and Philadelphia, who trod in the steps of
Newbery, and supplied the infant mind with its first and
sweetest literary food. The munificent Newbery, and the pious
and loyal Hugh Gaine, and the patriotic Samuel Loudon are
departed. Banks now abound and brokers swarm where Lou-
don erst printed, and many millions worth of silk and woolen
goods are every year sold where Gaine vended his big Bibles
and his little story-books. They are all gone; the glittering
covers and their more brilliant contents, the tales of wonder
and enchantment, the father's best reward for merit, the good
grandmother's most prized presents. They are gone — the
cheap delight of childhood, the unbought grace of boyhood,
the dearest, freshest, and most unfading recolledions of ma-
turer life. They are gone — and in their stead has succeeded
a swarm of geological catechisms, entomological primers, and
tales of political economy — dismal trash, all of them; some-
thing half-way between stupid story-books and bad school-
books; being so ingeniously written as to be unfit for any
useful purpose in school and too dull for any entertainment
out of it."

This is pradically Charles Lamb's lament of some thirty
years before. Lamb had despised the learned Charles, Mrs.

[ ^^7 ]

\ji

'/ 1/

A

Forgotten Books of the

Barbauld's peg upon which to hang instrudion, and now an
American Shakespeare lover found the use of toy-books as
mechanical guides to knowledge for nursery inmates equally
deplorable.

Yet an age so in love with the acquirement of solid fads
as to produce a Parley and an Abbott was the period when
the most famous of all nursery books was brought out
from the dark corner into which it had been swept by the
theories of two generations, and presented once again as
"The Only True Mother Goose Melodies."

The origin of Mother Goose as the proteding genius of
the various familiar jingles has been an interesting field of
speculation and research. The claim for Boston as the birth-
place of their sponsor has long ago been proved a poor one,
and now seems likely to have been an ingenious form of ad-
vertisement. But Boston undoubtedly did once again make
popular, at least in America, the lullabies and rhymes re-
peated for centuries around French or English firesides.

The history of Mother Goose and her brood is a long one.
"Mother Goose," writes Mr. Walter T. Field, "began her
existence as the raconteuse of fairy tales, not as the nursery
poetess. As La Mere Oye she told stories to French children
more than two hundred and fifty years ago." According to the
researches made by Mr. Field in the literature of Mother
Goose, "the earliest date at which Mother Goose appears as
the author of children's stories is 1667, when Charles Perrault,
a distinguished French litterateur, published in Paris a little
book of tales which he had during that and the preceding
year contributed to a magazine known as 'Moejen's Recueil,'

[ 218 ]

y^

American Nursery

printed at The Hague. This book is entitled 'Histoires ou
Contes du Terns Passe, avec des Moralitez/ and has a fron-
tispiece in which an old woman is pidured, telling stories to
a family group by the fireside while in the background are the
words in large charaders, 'Contes de ma Mere TOye.'"

It seems, however, to have been John Newbery's publish-
ing-house that made Mother Goose sponsor for the ditties in
much the form in which we now have them. In Newbery's
collection of "Melodies" there were numerous footnotes
burlesquing Dr. Johnson and his didionary, together with
jests upon the moralizing habit prevalent among authors.
There is evidence that Goldsmith wrote many of these notes
when doing hack-work for the famous publisher in St. Paul's
Churchyard. It is known, for instance, that in January,
1760, Goldsmith celebrated the produdion of his "Good
Natur'd Man" by dining his friends at an inn. During the
feast he sang his favorite song, said to be

"There was an old woman tos't up in a blanket,
Seventy times as high as the moon."

This was introduced quite irrelevantly in the preface to
"Mother Goose's Melodies," but with the apology that it
was a favorite with the editor. There is also the often quoted
remark of Miss Hawkins as confirming Goldsmith's editor-
ship : " I little thought what I should have to boast, when
Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill, by two bits of
paper on his fingers." But neither of these statements seems
to have more weight in solving the mystery of the editor's
name than the evidence of the whimsically satirical notes
themselves. How like the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield"

[ 219 ]

Forgotten Books of the

and the children's " Fables in Verse " is this remark under-
neath:

"'There was an old Woman who livM under a hill,
And if she 's not gone, she lives there still/

"This is a self evident Proposition, which is the very essence of
Truth. She lived under the hill, and if she 's not gone, she lives there
still. Nobody will presume to contradict this. Croesa"

And is not this also a good-natured imitation of that kind
of seriously intended information which Mr. Edgeworth in-
serted some thirty years later in "Harry and Lucy:" "Dry,
what is not wet"? Again this note is appended to

"See Saw Margery Daw
Jacky shall have a new master:"

"It is a mean and scandalous Pradise in Authors to put
Notes to Things that deserve no Notice." Who except Gold-
smith was capable of this vein of humor?

When Munroe and Francis in Boston undertook about
eighteen hundred and twenty-four to republish these old-
fashioned rhymes, in the pradice of the current theory that
everything must be simplified, they omitted all these notes
and changed many of the "Melodies." Sir Walter Scott's
"Donnel Dhu" was included, and the beautiful Shakespeare
seledions, "When Daffodils begin to 'pear," "When the Bee
sucks," etc., were omitted. Doubtless the American editors
thought that they had vastly improved upon the Newbery
publication in every word changed and every line omitted.
In reality, they deprived the nursery of much that might well
have remained as it was, although certain expressions were
very properly altered. In a negative manner they did one

[ 220 ]

American Nursery

surprising and fortunate thing: in leaving out the amusing
notes they did not attempt to replace them, and consequently
the nursery had one book free from that advice and precept,
which in other verse for children resulted in persistent nag-
ging. The illustrations were entirely re drawn, and Abel Bowen
and Nathaniel Dearborn were asked to do the engraving for
this Americanized edition.

Of the poetry written in America for children before eight-
een hundred and forty there is little that need be said. Much
of it was entirely religious in charaderand most of it was color-
less and dreary stuff. The "Child's Gem" of eighteen hundred
and thirty-eight, considered a treasury of precious verse by one
reviewer, and issued in embossed morocco binding, was char-
aderistic of many contemporary petns^ in which nature was
forced to exude precepts of virtue and industry. The following
stanzas are no exception to the general tone of the contents of
pradically every book entitled "Poetry for Children:"

"'Be good, little Edmund/ your mother will say,
She will whisper it soft in your ear.
And often repeat it, by night and by day
That you may not forget it, my dear.

" And the ant at its work, and the flower-loving bee
And the sweet little bird in the wood
As it warbles its song, from its nest in the tree.
Seems to say, ' little Eddy be good.' "

The change in the charader of the children's books written
by Americans had begun to be seriously noticed in England.
Although there were still many importations (such as the series
written by Mrs. Sherwood), there was some inclination to re-

[ 221 ]

Forgotten Books of the

sent the stocking of American booksellers' shelves by the work
of local talent, much to the detriment of English publishers'
pockets. The literary critics took up the subjed, and thought
themselves justified in disparaging many of the American
books which found also ready sale on English book-counters.
The religious books underwent scathing criticism, possibly
not undeserved, except that the English produdions of the
same order and time make it now appear that it was but the
pot calling the kettle black. Almost as much fault was found
with the story-books. It apparently mattered little that the
tables were now turned and British publishers were pirating
American tales as freely and successfully as Thomas and
Philadelphia printers had in former years made use of New-
bery's, and Darton and Harvey's, juvenile novelties in book
ware.

In the " Quarterly Review" of 1843, ^^ ^^ article entitled
"Books for Children," the writer found much cause for com-
plaint in regard to stories then all too conspicuous in book-
shops in England. "The same egregious mistakes," said
the critic, "as to the nature of a child's understanding
— the same explanations, which are all but indelicate, and
always profane — seem to pervade all these American men-
tors; and of a number by Peter Parley, Abbott, Todd, &c.,
it matters little which we take up." "Under the name of
Peter Parley," continued the disgruntled gentleman, after
finding only malicious evil in poor Mr. Todd's efforts to ex-
plain religious dodrines, "such a number of juvenile school-
books are current — some greatly altered from the originals
and many more by adopters of Mr. Goodrich's pseudonym

[ 222 ]

American Nursery

— that it becomes difficult to measure the merits or demerits
of the said magnus parens^ Goodrich." Liberal quotations fol-
lowed from " Peter Parley's Farewell," which was censured as
palling to the mind of those familiar with the English sources
from which the fads had been irreverently culled.

The reviewer then passed on to another sedion of "Ameri-
can abominations" which "seem to have some claim to pop-
ularity since they are easily sold." "These," continued the
anonymous critic, "are works not of amusement — those we
shall touch upon later — but of that half-and-half description
where instrudion blows with a side wind. . . . Accordingly
after impatient investigation of an immense number of little
tomes, we are come to the conclusion that they may be briefly
classified — firstly, as containing such information as any
child in average life who can speak plainly is likely to be pos-
sessed of; and secondly, such as when acquired is not worth
having."

To this second class of book the Reverend Mr. Abbott's
"Rollo Books" were unhesitatingly consigned. They were re-
garded as curiosities for "mere occupation of the eye, and
utter stagnation of the thoughts, full of empty minutiae with
all the rules of common sense set aside."

Next the writer considered the style of those Americans
who persuaded shillings from English pockets by "ingen-
iously contrived series which rendered the purchase of a single
volume by no means so recommendable as that of all." The
" uncouth phraseology, crack-jack words, and puritan de-
rived words are nationalized and therefore do not permit
cavilling," continued the reviewer, dismayed and disgusted

[ 223 ]

Forgotten Books of the

that it was necessary to warn his public, "but their children
never did, or perhaps never will, hear any other language;
and it is to be hoped they understand it. At all events, we
have nothing to do but keep ours from it, believing firmly
that early familiarity with refined and beautiful forms ... is
one of the greatest safeguards against evil, if not necessary to
good."

However, the critic did not close his article without a
good word for those ladies in whose books we ourselves have
found merit. " Their works of amusement " he considered
admirable, " when not laden with more religion than the tale
can hold in solution. Miss Sedgwick takes a high place for
powers of description and traits of nature, though her lan-
guage is so studded with Americanisms as much to mar the
pleasure and perplex the mind of an English reader. Besides
this lady, Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Seba Smith may be
mentioned. The former, especially, to all other gifts adds a
refinement, and nationality of subjed, with a knowledge of
life, which some of her poetical pieces led us to exped. In-
deed the little Americans have little occasion to go begging
to the history or tradition ot other nations for topics of in-
terest."

The "Westminster Review" of eighteen hundred and
forty was also in doubt "whether all this Americanism [such
as Parley's 'Tales' contained] is desirable for English chil-
dren, were it," writes the critic, "only for them we keep the
'pure well of English undefiled,' and cannot at all admire the
improvements which it pleases that go-ahead nation to claim
the right of making in our common tongue: unwisely enough

[ 224 ]

American Nursery

as regards themselves, we think, for one of the elements in
the power of a nation is the wide spread of its language."

This same criticism was made again and again about the
style of American writers for adults, so that it is little won-
der the children's books received no unqualified praise. But
Americanisms were not the worst feature of the "inundation
of American children's books," which because of their novelty
threatened to swamp the "higher class " English. They were
feared because of the " multitude of false notions likely to
be derived from them, the more so as the similarity of name
and language prevents children from being on their guard,
and from remembering that the representations that they
read are by foreigners." It was the American view of Eng-
lish institutions (presented in story-book form) which rankled
in the British breast as a "condescending tenderness of the
free nation towards the monarchical regime " from which at
any cost the English child must be guarded. In this resped
Peter Parley was the worst offender, and was regarded as
" a sad purveyor of slip-slop, and no matter how amusing,
ignorant of his subjed." That gentleman, meanwhile, read
the criticisms and went on making "bread and butter," while
he scowled at the English across the water, who criticised, but
pirated as fast as he published in America.

Gentle Miss EHza Leslie received altogether different treat-
ment in this review of American juvenile literature. She was
considered "good everywhere, and particularly so for the
meridian in which her tales were placed;" and we quite agree
with the reviewer who considered it well worth while to quote
long paragraphs from her " Tell Tale " to show its charader

[ 2^5 ]

Forgotten Books of the

and " truly useful lesson." " To America," continued this writer,
"we also owe a host of little books, that bring together the
literature of childhood and the people; as 'Home,' 'Live and
Let Live' [by Miss Sedgwick], &c., but excellent in inten-
tion as they are, we have our doubts, as to the general recep-
tion they will meet in this country while so much of more
exciting and elegant food is at hand." Even if the food of
amusement in England appeared to the British mind more
spiced and more elegant^ neither Miss Leslie's nor Miss Sedg-
wick's fiditious children were ever anaemic puppets with-
out wills of their own, — a type made familiar by Miss Edge-
worth and persisted in by her admirers and successors, — but
vitalized little creatures, who aded to some degree, at least,
like the average child who loved their histories and named
her dolls after favorite charade rs.

To-day these English criticisms are only of value as show-
ing that the American story-book was no longer imitating the
English tale, but was developing, by reason of the impress
of differing social forces, a new type. Its faults do not prevent
us from seeing that the spirit expressed in this juvenile litera-
ture is that of a new nation feeling its own way, and making
known its purpose in its own manner. While we smile at
sedulous endeavors of the serious-minded writers to present
their convidions, educational, religious, or moral, in palatable
form, and to consider children always as a race apart, whose
natural adions were invariably sinful, we still read between
the lines that these writers were really interested in the welfare
of the American child; and that they were working according
to the accepted theories of the third decade of the nineteenth

[ 226 ]

I

'^he Little Runaway

American Nursery

century as to the constituents of a juvenile library which,
while "judicious and attractive, should also blend instrudion
with innocent amusement."

And now as we have reached the point in the history of
the American story-book when it is popular at least in both
English-speaking countries, if not altogether satisfadory to
either, what can be said of the value of this juvenile literature
of amusement which has developed on the tiny pages of well-
worn volumes'? If, of all the books written for children by
Americans seventy-five years and more ago, only Nathaniel
Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" has survived to the present
generation; of all the verse produced, only the simple rhyme,
"Mary had a Little Lamb," and Clement Moore's "The Night
before Christmas " are still quoted, has their history any value
to-day?

If we consider that there is nothing more rare in the fidion
of any nation than the popular child's story that endures;
nothing more unusual than the successful well-written juve-
nile tale, we can perhaps find a value not to be reckoned by
the survival or literary charader of these old-fashioned books,
but in their silent testimony to the influence of the progress
of social forces at work even upon so small a thing as a child's
toy-book. The successful well-written child's book has been
rare, because it has been too often the objed rather than the
manner of writing that has been considered of importance ;
because it has been the aim of all writers either to "improve
in goodness" the young reader, as when, two hundred years
ago. Cotton Mather penned "Good Lessons " for his infant son
to learn at school, or, to quote the editor of "Affedion's Gift"

[ 227 ]

Forgotten Books of the

(published a century and a quarter later), it has been for the
purpose of "imparting moral precepts and elevated senti-
ments, of uniting instrudion and amusement, through the fas-
cinating mediums of interesting narrative and harmony of
numbers."

The result of both intentions has been a coUedion of dingy
or faded duodecimos containing a series of impressions of
what each generation thought good, religiously, morally, and
educationally, for little folk. If few of them shed any light
' upon child nature in those long-ago days, many throw shafts
of illumination upon the change and progress in American
ideals and thought concerning the welfare of children. As
has already been said, the press supplied what the public
taste demanded, and if the writers produced for earlier gen-
erations of children what may now be considered lumber, the
press of more modern date has not progressed so far in this
field of literature as to make it in any degree certain that our
children's treasures may not be consigned to an equal oblivion.
For these too are but composites made by superimposing the
latest fads or theories as to instructive amusement of chil-
dren upon those of previous generations of toy-books. Most
of what was once considered the "perfume of youth and
freshness" in a literary way has been discarded as dry and
unprofitable, mistaken or deceptive; and yet, after all has
been said by way of criticism of methods and subjeds, these
chap-books, magazines, gift and story books form our best
if blurred pidures of the amusements and daily life of the
old-time American child.

We are learning also to prize these small " Histories " as part

[228]

American Nurseri/

of the progress of the arts of book-making and illustration,
and of the growth of the business of publishing in America;
and already we are aware of the fulfilment of what was called
by one old bookseller, " Tom Thumb's Maxim in Trade and
Politics:" "He who buys this book for Two-pence, and lays
it up till it is worth Three-pence, may get an hundred per
cent by the bargain."

\

Index

INDEX

Abbott, Jacob, 20 1, 208, 213,

215, 218, 222, 223.
Abbott, John S. C, 129.
A, B, C Book, 1 01.
A, B, C of religion, 22.
Absence from Christ intolerable,

39.
Adams, John, 165.

Adams, Mrs. John, 91.
Adams, J. A., 169. /

Adams, John Quincy, 196.
Addison, Joseph, 159.
Adventures of a Peg-top, 109.
Adventures of a Pincushion,

109, III, 112.
Adventures of Lot, 206.
Aesop, 63, 66, 67, 69, 90, loi,

109.
AfFedtionate Daughter-in-Law,

206.
Affection's Gift, 227.
Aikin, Dr. John, 139, 140, 163.
Ainsworth, Robert, 63.
Aitkin, Robert, 100, loi.
Alarm to Unconverted Sinners,

An, 206.
Althea Vernon, 210. [103*

American Antiquarian Society,
American Flag, 148.
American Girls* Book, 209.
American Juvenile Keepsake,

197, 200.
American Sunday School Union,

201, 202, 204.

American Weekly Mercury, 20.
Ami des Enfans, 134, 135.
Amyntor, 192.
Anderson, Dr. Alexander, 166-

169, 180.
Andre, Major John, 97.
Andrews, Joseph, 196.
Andrews, Thomas, 102.
Anecdotenvon Hunden, 178.
Anecdotes of Christian Missions,

206.
Animated Nature, 108.
Annales of Madame de Genlis,

134.

Annual Register, 163.

Anthony and Clara, 210.

Arabian Nights, 162.

Argalus & Parthenia, 90.

Arnold, Benedict, 97, 98.

Arthur's Geographical Gram-
mar, 99.

Art's Treasury, 90.

Ashe, Thomas T., 207.

Ashton, John, 54.

Atlantic Stories, 210.

Avery, S., 180.

Babcock, Sidney, 167, 168.
Bache, Benjamin, 100, loi,

104, 105, 127.
Bag of Nuts ready Cracked, 107.
Bailey, Francis, 123.
Banbury Chap-Books, 53, 70,

117.

[ 233 ]

Index

Barbauld, Anna Letitia, 127-
129, 132, 140-142, 152,
155,163, 188, 218.

Barclay, Andrew, 102, 103.

Baskerville, John, 103.

Battelle, E., 102.

Battle of the Kegs, 97.

Be Merry and Wise, 67, 106.

Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, 162.

Belcher, J., 170, 171.

Bell, Robert, 75, 76, 89, 100,

lOI.

Benezet, Anthony, 10 1.
Berquin, Arnaud, 134, 159,

161.
Bewick, Thomas, 117, 118,

i35./t66, 168, i>9.
Bewick^s Quadrupeds, 168.
Bibliography of Worcester, 102.
Big and Little Puzzling Caps,

107.
Biography for Boys, 115.
Biography for Girls, 114, 115.
Birthday Stories, 210.
Blossoms of Morality, 165.
Blue Beard, The History of,

141, 165.
Body of Divinity versified, 22.
Book for Boys and Girls; or,

Country Rhimes for Children,

II.
Book for Boys and Girls; or.

Temporal Things Spiritual-
ized, 13.
Book of Knowledge, 90, 103.
Book of Martyrs, 10.

c

Books for Children, 222.
Bookseller of the last century.

The, 51, 54-
Boone, Daniel, 198.
Boone, Nicholas, 17.
Boston Chronicle, 74, 75.
Boston Evening Post, 38, 43,

73-
Boston Gazette and Country

Journal, 80.
Boston News Letter, 19.
Boston Public Library, 74,
Bowen, Abel, 169, 221.
Boy and his Paper of Plumbs,

12.
Boy and the Watchmaker, 12.
Boy's Own Book, 209.
Boyle, John, 76, 77.
Bradford, Andrew, 20, 21, 126.
Bradford, Thomas, 59, 90, 100.
Brewer, printer, 167.
Brooke, Henry, 130.
Brooks, Elbridge, 215.
Brother's Gift, 80, iii, 112.
Browne, Miss, 197.
Brynberg, Peter, 165.
Buccaneers of America, 90.
Bunyan, John, 10-13.
Burr, Aaron, 132-134.
Burr, Theodosia, 132, 133.
Burton, R., 36, 37.
Burton's Historical Collections,

36.
Busy Bee, 187.

Butcher, Elizabeth, 21,40, 186.
Butterworth, Hezekiah, 132.
234 ]

Index

Cadet's Sister, 210.
Cameron, Lucy Lyttleton, 152,

184.
Canary Bird, The, 172.
Carey, Matthew, 165, 206.
Carey, Robert, 72.
Carnan, Mr., 46, 104.
Carter, John, 10 1.
Catechism, 5, 6, 10, 15.
Catechism of New England, 7.
Cautionary Stories in Verse,

175.
Century Magazine, 208.
Chandler, Samuel, 163.
Chap-Books of the Eighteenth

Century, 54.
Chapone, Hester, 113, 114,

159.
Chapters of Accidents, 1 74.
Charles, Mary, 170.
Charles, William, 170, 171,

176, 183.
Cheap Repository, 152.
Cherry Orchard,The, 156,177.
Child, Lydia Maria, 193, 201.
Child and his Book, 11, 45.
Children in the Wood, 8.
Children's Books and Reading,

132.
Children's Friend, 135, 161.
Children's Magazine, The, 1 01.
Children's Miscellany, 129,

Child's Garden of Verses, Ste-
venson's, 182.
Child's Gem, 221.

[

Child's Guide to Spelling and

Reading, 165.
Child's Instru6tor, 122, 123.
Child's New Play-thing,4i,43-

45-
Choice Spirits, 90.
Christmas Box, 64, 106.
Cinderella, 62, 171. [109.

Clarissa Harlowe, 50, 79-85,
Clarke, Edward, 41.
Cock Robin, 166.
Colle(S^ion of Pretty Poems, 67.
Collins, Benjamin, 47.
Complete Letter- Writer, 90.
Congress, The, 98.
Conrad and Parsons, 206, 207.
Contes de ma Mere I'Oye, 219.
Cooper, James Fenimore, 148,

191,203, 211.
Cooper, Rev. Mr., 134.
Copley, John Stuart, 217.
Cotton, John, 6, 9, 30.
Cottons and Barnard, 206.
Country Rhimes for Children,

II, 13-
Coverly, Nathaniel, 166.
Cowper, William, 153, 175.
Cox and Berry, 80.
Cries of London, 80, 180.
Cries of New York, 180-182.
Cries of Philadelphia, 180.
Cross, Wilbur L., 80.
Crouch, Nathaniel, 36.
Cruel Giant Barbarico, 74.
Crukshank, Joseph, 100, loi,

165.
235 ]

Index

Custis, John Parke, 73.
Custis, Martha Parke, 73.
Cuz's Chorus, III.

Daisy, The, 176.

Darton, William, 124, 174,

182, 213.
Darton and Harvey, 222,
Day, Mahlon, 169, 206, 207.
Day, Thomas, 129-132, 142,

145, 154, 179. 188.
Daye, John, 7.

Dearborn, Nathaniel, 169, 221.
Death and Burial of Cock

Robin, 124.
Death of Abel, 90.
Defoe, Daniel, 129.
Delight in the Lord Jesus, 39.
Description of Various Objedls,

A, 173-
Development of the English

novel, 80.
Dennie, Joseph, 192. [136.
Dilworth, Thomas, 38,41,121,
Divine Emblems, 13.
Divine Songs, 38.
Doane, Bishop G. W., 196.
Doddridge, Philip, 152, 184.
Dodsley, Robert, 95.
Don Quixote, 161.
Donaldson, Arthur, 192.
Donnel Dhu, 220.
Doolittle, Amos, 169.
Dove, The, 134.
Drake, Joseph Rodman, 148.
Draper, Samuel, 69.

[

Draper and Edwards, 44.
Drinker, Eliza, 91, 126.
Dryden's Poems, 163.
Dunlap, John, 100.
Dunton, John, 8, 36.
Durell, publisher, 166, 167.
Duyckinck, Evert, 217.

JjiARLY Lessons, 155.
Earnest Exhortation, 22.
Easy Introduction into the

knowledge of Nature, 128.
Easy Lessons for Children, 127,

128, 132, 155.
Economy of Human Life, 152.
Edgeworth, Maria, 128, 140,

15O7 153-1591 164, 171,

I75-I77> 187, 188, 207,

212, 213, 226.
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell,

154-156, 220.
Edwards, Joseph, 43.
Elegant Extrafts, 162.
Embury, Emma C, 200, 201.
Emulation, 187.
English Empire in America, 36.
Entertaining Fables, 109.
Errand Boy, 187.
Evenings at Home, 128, 139,

163, 164.
Everett, Alexander H., 196.
Everett, Edward, 196.

Tables in verse, 53, 220.
Fabulous Histories, 128, 141.
Fair Rosamond, 24.
236 ]

Index

Fairchild Family , The, 152,186,

212.
Fairy Book, 216.
Familiar Description of Beasts

and Birds, 174.
Farrar, Eliza Ware, 213.
Father's Gift, The, iii.
Female Orators, 82.
Fenelon's Reflections, 184.
Field, E. M., 11,45.
Field, Walter T., 218. [137.
Fielding, Henry, 51, 78,80,81,
Fields, James T., 196.
First Book of the American

Chronicles of the Times, 76.
Fleet, Thomas, 19, 20, 24, 38.
Fleming, John, 74.
Flora's Gala, 175.
Follen, Eliza L., 213.
Food for the Mind, 67, 68, 107.
Fool of Quality, 130.
Ford, Paul Leicester, 14.
Fowle, Zechariah, 20, 40, 69,

103.
Fowle and Draper, 72.
Fox and Geese, 209.
Foxe, John, 10.
Franconia, 215.
Frank, 155.
Franklin, Benjamin, 21-24, 26,

36^ 38, 59-62, 103, 105,

123, 179, i93i 216.
Franklin, Sally, 62, 63.
Franklin and Hall, 59.
French Convert, 90.
Friendly Instru6tion, 184.

[ 237

Cjaffer Two Shoes, 82.
Gaine, Hugh, 64, 65, 67, 68,

89, 167, 217.
Gallaudet, Elisha, 196.
Garden Amusements, 175.
Generous Inconstant, The, 82.
Genlis, Madame Stephanie-Fe-

licite de, 132, 134.
Geographical, Statistical and

Political Amusement, 178.
George's Junior Republic, 139.
Gilbert, C, 169.
Giles Gingerbread, 74, no,

140, 159.
Gilman, Caroline, 194, 195,
Going to Jerusalem, 209.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 51, 52, 80,

82,95, 108, 159, 219,220.
Good Lessons for Children, 18,

127, 227.
Good Natur'd Man, 219.
Goodrich, Samuel G., 129,

194-196, 198, 199, 201,

208, 213-215, 218, 222-

225.
Goody Two-Shoes, 52, 53, 55,

89, loi, no, 116-118, 123,

140-142, 159.
Greeley, Horace, 196.
Green, Samuel, 10, 13, 14.
Green, Timothy, 17.
Gulliver's Adventures, 125.
Guy of Warwick, 8.

Hail Columbia, 148, 211.
Hale, Richard W., 208.

]

Index

Hale, Sarah J., 193, 208, 209.

Hall, Anna Maria, 197, 199.

Hall, David, 59, 62, 100.

Hall, Samuel, 124, 125.

Hall, William, 100.

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 148.

Hannah Swanton, the Casco
Captive, 206.

Happy Child, 40.

Harper and Brothers, 206, 216.

Harris, Benjamin, 14.

Harris, John, 182, 183.

Harry and Lucy, 155,156,1 64,
220.

Harvey, John, 182.

Hawkins, Laetitia Matilda, 2 19.

Hawthorne, Julian, 78, 129,
130.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 149,
196, 227.

Hebrides, 153.

Henrietta Harrison, 211.

Hildeburn, Charles R., 65, 93.

Hill, George Birbeck, 141.

Hill, Hannah, 21, 186.

Histoires ou Contes du Terns
Passe, 219.

Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania, 69.

History of a Doll, 136.

History of printing in America,
18, 19.

History of the American Revo-
lution, 123.

History of the Holy Jesus, 39,
40, 103.

[

History of the Institution of

Cyrus, 130.
History of the Robins, 129.
Hive, The, 195.
Hobby Horse, The, 42, 80.
Hofland, Barbara, 197, 198.
Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell,

162-164, 184, 196, 201.
Holy Bible in Verse, 15.
Home, 226.

Home of Washington, 28.
Hopkinson, Joseph, 148.
Hot Buttered Beans, 209.
House that Jack Built, 19.
Howard, Mr., 29.
Hudibras, 161.
Hunt the Thimble, 209.
Hymns for Infant Minds, 184.
Hymns in Prose and Verse, 128.

"Ianthe." See Embury.
Illman, Thomas, 196.
Infidel Class, 206.
Irving, Washington, 148, 191.

Jack and Jill, 219.

Jack the Giant Killer, 8, 141.

Jacky Dandy's Delight, 107,

108.
James, William, 175, 176.
Jane Grey, 24.
Janeway, James, 17, 186.
Jenny Twitchell's Jests, 90.
Joe Miller's Jests, 90.
Johnson, Benjamin, 164, 178,

183, 192.
238 ]

Index

Johnson, Jacob, 152, 155, 156,
159, 164, 173, 178, 183.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 36,50-52,
129, 140,141,153, 219.

Johnson and Warner, 164, 178,

183.

Johnsonian Miscellany, 141.

Jones, Giles, 52,53-

Joseph Andrews, 78, 81,90.

Josephus, 167.

Julianna Oakley, 206.

Juvenile Biographers, 1 15, 1 16.

Juvenile Magazine, 179, 192.

Juvenile Miscellany, 193-195,
208, 212.

Juvenile Olio, 192.

Juvenile Piety, 206.

Juvenile Portfolio, 192.

Juvenile Rambler, 195.

Juvenile Trials for Robbing Or-
chards, etc., 139, 140.

jVeeper's Travels in Search of

his Master, 172.
Kellogg, Joseph G., 196.
Kendall, Dr., 172.
Key, Francis Scott, 148.
Kilner, Dorothy, 109.
King Pippin, 55, no, 159, 163.
Kleine Erzahlungen iiber ein

Buch mit Kupfern, 178.
Knox, Thomas W., 132.

L/ADY Queen Anne, 209.
Lamb, Charles, 141, 142, 217.
Lansing, G., 169.

[

Lark, The, 90.

Launch of the Frigate, 210.

Lee, Richard Henry, 28, 29.

Legacy to Children, 126.

Lenox Collection, 180.

Leo, the Great Giant, 74.

Leslie, Eliza, 193, 196, 201,
208-211, 225, 226.

Letters from the Dead to the
Living, 162.

Letters to Little Children, 206.

Liddon, Mr., 100.

Life of David, 163.

Lilly, Wait and Company, 194,
206.

Lincoln and Edmunds, 1 84, 206.

Linnet, The, 90.

Linton, William James, 166,
168, 169.

Literary Magazine, 52.

Literature of the American Re-
volution, 98.

Little Book for Children, 17.

Little Boy found under a Hay-
cock, 123.

Little Deceiver Reclaimed, 206.

Little Dog Trusty, 156.

Little Fanny, 176.

Little Helen, 212.

Little Henry, 170.

Little Henry and his Bearer,
184, 185.

Little Jack, 131.

Little Lottery Book, 106.

Little Lucy, 212.

Little Millenium Boy, 186.
239 ]

■ %

Index

Little Nancy, 171, 176-178.
Little Pretty Pocket-Book, A,

47-50, 67.
Little Readers' Assistant, 121,

122.
Little Robin Red Breast, 114.
Little Scholar's Pretty Pocket

Companion, 122.
Little Sophie, 176.
Little Truths, 124, 125, 182.
Little William, 171.
Live and Let Live, 226.
Lives of Highvv^aymen, 90.
Lives of Pirates, 90.
Locke, John, 4i-43> 4^, 51.

66, 99.
London Chronicle, 53.
Longfellow, Henry W., 196.
Longworth, David, 165, 168.
Looking-glass, A, 22.
Looking Glass for the Mind,

134, 135, i59> 162, 166.
Lossing, Benson J., 28, 29,

167.
Loudon, Samuel, 217.
Love Token for Children, 212.

JVIacaulay, T. B., 153.

Magnalia, 162.

Mary had a Little Lamb, 208,

209, 227.
Mason, A. J., 169.
Massachusetts Sunday School

Union, 194.
Master Jacky and Miss Harriot,

135.

[ 240

Mather, Cotton, 6, 7, 9, 16-18,

21, 22, 56, 127, 185, 186,

227.
Mather, Elizabeth, 16.
Mather, Increase, 16-18.
Mather, Samuel, 16.
Mein, John, 73-75, ^^^ 89.
Metamorphosis, A, 169.
Milk for Babes, 6, 7, 30.
Milton, John, 159, 175.
Mr. Telltruth's Natural History

of Birds, 107.
Mitford, Mary Russell, 197.
Moejen's Recueil, 218.
Moll Flanders, 90.
Moore, Clement Clarke, 147-

149, 227.
Moral Tale, 187.
Moral Tales, 159.
More, Hannah, 134, 150-153,

159, 188, 212-214.
Morgan, engraver, 169.
Morgan and Sons, 170, 207.
Morgan and Yeager, 170.
Morton, Eliza, 95.
Moses, Montrose J., 132.
Mother Goose Melodies, 19,20,

53, 114, 218-220.
Mother's Gift, 82, iii, 113,

118.
Mother's Remarks over a Set

of Cuts, A, 178.
Munroe and Francis, 20, 168,

206, 220.
Murray, James, 91.
Museum, The, 60, 61.

]

Index

My Father, 176.

My Governess, 176, 182.

My Mother, 176.

My Pony, 176.

My Sister, 182.

Natural History of Four
Footed Beasts, 107.

Neagle, John, 169.

New England Courant, 21, 22.

New England Primer, 6, 7, 13-
15, 28,33,93, 121.

New French Primer, 60.

New Gift for Children with
Cuts, 40,69-72, 103.

New Guide to the English
Tongue, 38.

New Pi6ture of the City, 100.

New Year's Gift, 64.

New York Mercury, 67.

New York Weekly, 207.

Newbery, Carnan, 54.

Newbery, Edward, 54.

Newbery, Francis, 46, 51, 54,
82.

Newbery, John, 28, 37,40,46-
56, 60-62, 64, 67, 70, 74,
77,82,89,90,97,101,104,
108, 118, 123, 124, 141,
142, 154, 159, 182, 187,
198,216,217,219,220,222.

Newbery, Ralph, 46.

Nichols, Dr. Charles L., 102,
103.

Night before Christmas, The,
147, 148, 227.

[ 241

Noel, Garrat, 68, 148.
North American Review, 212.
Nutter, Valentine, 89.

Old Mother Hubbard, 166.
Olive Buds, 213.
Orangeman, The, 156.
Original Poems, 182.
Osgood, Frances S., 213.
Oswald, Ebenezer, 100.

Pamela, 50, 78, 80, 81, 109.

Parable against Persecution,! 23.

Paradise Lost, 153.

Parent's Assistant, 155.

Parents' Gift, 38.

Parker, James, 62.

Parley, Peter. See Goodrich, S. G.

Pastoral Hymn, 74.

Patriotic and Amatory Songster,

180.
Peacock at Home, 171.
Pearl, The, 209.
Pearson, Edwin, 53, 117.
Pease, Joseph I., 196.
Pedigree and Rise of the Pretty

Doll, 136-139.
Pelton, Oliver, 196.
Pennsylvania Evening Post, 93.
Pennsylvania Gazette, 59, 62.
Pennsylvania Journal, 59.
People of all Nations, 173, 174.
Peregrine Pickle, 51, 109.
Perrault, Charles, 62, 218.
Perry, Michael, 26.
Philadelphiad, The, 100.

]

'" I

Index

Pidure Exhibition, The, io6,

109.
Pilgrim's Progress, 10, 36, 95,

126, 163, 167.
Pilkington, Mary, 114.
Pinckney, Eliza, 91.
Play-thing, The, 61.
Pleasures of Piety in Youth, 1 84.
Plutarch's Lives, 130.
Poems for Children, 208.
Poems for Children Three Feet

High, 64.
Poesie out of Mr. Dod's Gar-
den, 38.
Poetical Description of Song

Birds, 114.
Poetry for Children, 213, 221.
Popular Tales, 155.
Poupard, James, 169.
Power of Religion, 152.
Pra6lical Education, 128.
Praaical Piety, 184.
Present for a Little Girl, 169.
Preservative from the Sins and

Follies of Childhood, 40.
Pretty Book for Children, 60,

61,67.
Principles of the Christian Re-
ligion, 184.
Pritchard, Mr., 100.
Private Tutor for little Masters

and Misses, 67.
Prize for Youthful Obedience,

172, 173.
Prodigal Daughter, The, 24-26,

40, 188.

[ 242

Protestant Tutor for Children,

13^ 14-
Puritan Primer, 13.
Puzzling Cap, 80, 82.

Quarterly Review, 222.
Quincy, Mrs. Josiah, 158, 159.

Raikes, Robert, 151.
Ralph, W., 169.
Rand, Rev. Asa, 194.
Rebels, The, 98.
Recolle£lions of a New England

Housekeeper, 195.
Redwood, 211.
Rees's Encyclopedia, 163.
Reformed Family, 206.
Remembrance of Youth is a

Sigh, 200.
Rhymes for the Nursery, 20,

182.
Rice, Mr., 100.
Richardson, Samuel, 50, 78-81,

137-
Rivington, James, 65, 67, 68.
Roberts, Jean, 197.
Robin Red Breast, 90.
Robin's Alive, 209.
Robinson Crusoe, 79, 90, 118,

129, 130^ 159-
Roderick Random, 51, 109.
Roger and Berry, 89.
Rollin's Ancient History, 161.
Rollinson, William, 169.
Rollo Books, 213, 215, 223.
Rose, The, 187.

]

Index

Rose Bud, 195.

Rose's Breakfast, The, 175.

Rowe, Elizabeth, 162.

Royal Battledore, 60, 61.

Royal Primer, 61.

Russell's Seven Sermons, 90.

Sabbath School Times, 194.
Sanford and Merton, 129, 154.
Scotch Rogue, 90.
Scott, Sir Walter, 158, 220.
Scott's (Rev. Thomas) Family

Bible, 163.
Search after Happiness, 134,

152.
Sedgwick,Catharine Maria, 152,

160,161,193,196,208,211,

212, 224, 226.
Seven Wise Masters, 90.
Seven Wise Mistresses, 90.
Sewall, Henry, 9.
Sewall, Samuel, 9, 10.
Shakespeare, William, 159,161.
Sharps, William, 29.
Sheldon, Lucy, 82.
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, 152,

214.
Sherwood, Mary Martha, 152,

184, 186, 187, 212, 221.
Sigourney, Lydia H., 193, 208,

213, 224.
Simple Susan, 158.
Sims, Joseph, 27.

Sir Charles Grandison, 79-82.
Sister's Gift, 80, 111-113.
Skyrin, Nancy, 126, 127.

[

Smart, Christopher, 54.
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 213,

224.
Smollett, Tobias, 51, 52, 78,

79-
Song for the Red Coats, 97.
Songs for the Nursery, 19, 20.
Southern Rose, 195.
Souvenir, 210.
Sparrow, The, 172.
Star Spangled Banner, 148.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 182.
Stir the Mush, 209.
Stone, William L., 200.
Stories and Tales, 90.
Stories for Children, 212.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 162,
Strahan, William, 61-63.

Tale, A: The Political Bal-
ance, 123.

Tales and Essays, 213.

Taylor, Ann, 176, 182.

Taylor, Jane, 182, 184.

Tell Tale, 225.

Thackerary, W. M., 34.

Thomas, Isaiah, 18-20, 40, 69,
74, 102-104, 106, 109, 116-
118, 129, 168, 198, 222.

Thompson, John, 168.

Thoughts on Education, 41, 66,
99.

Three Stories for Children, 156.

Todd, John, D.D., 222.

Token, The, 196, 197, 212,
214.

243 ]

Index

Token for Children, 17, 186.
Token for the Children of New

England, 17, 21, 186.
Token for Youth, 40.
Tom Hick-a-Thrift, 24.
Tom Jones, 51, 78, 80, 109,

no.
Tom the Piper's Son, 170.
Tom Thumb, 8, 19, 24, 62,

74, ']']^ 102, 106, 114,166,

167.
Tommy Trapwit, 64.
Tommy Trip, 52, 74, 107, 108.
Track the Rabbit, 209.
Trimmer, Sarah, 128, 129, 141,

142, 159.
Trip's Book of Pidtures, 64.
Triumphs of Love, 90.
Troy (N. Y.) Sentinel, 147.
Twelve Caesars, 90.
Twice Told Tales, 196,
Two Lambs, 152.
Two Shoemakers, 152.
Tyler, Moses Coit, 98.

Unterhaltungen fiir Deutsche

Kinder, 178.
Urax, or the Fair Wanderer, 74.

Valentine and Orson, 90.
Verplanck, Gulian C, 196,216.
Vicar of Wakefield, 52, 219.
Violet, The, 209.

Waddell, J., 62.
Walks of Usefulness, 184.

[ 244

Walters and Norman, 93.

Walton's Lives, 153.

Warner and Hanna, 169.

Washington, George, 28, 29,
72, n, 93> 122, 123, 170,
179.

Waste Not, Want Not, 156-
158.

Watts, Isaac, 38, 45, 46.

Way to Wealth, 179.

Webster, Noah, 121, 122, 136.

Weekly Mercury, 23, 26, 27,
64, 65, 68.

Weekly Post-Boy, 62.

Weems's Life of George Wash-
ington, 179, 180.

Well Spent Hour, 212.

Wells, Anna M., 193, 213.

Wells, Robert, 102.

Welsh, Charles, 46, 49, 51, 54,
61, 70, 124, 142.

West, Benjamin, 216.

Westminster Review, 224.

WestminsterShorterCatechism,

7-
White, William, D.D., 151.

Whitefield, George, 151.

Widdows, P., 126.

Wilder, Mary, 113.

Willis, Nathaniel P., 194.

Winslow, Anna Green, 81-83,

85.

Winter Evenings' Entertain-
ment, 37, 90.
Wonder Book, 149, 227.
Wonderful Traveller, 209.

]

Index

Wonders of Nature and Art, 53.
Wood, Samuel, 165, 166, 169,

175. [206.

Wood, Samuel, and Sons, 167,
Wood-engraving in America,

166-169.
Woodhouse, William, 100.
Worcester Magazine, 104.

Young, William, 129.
Young Child's ABC, 166.
Young Christian Series, 215.
Young Gentlemen and Ladies'

Magazine, 183.
Youth's Companion, 194.
Youth's Divine Pastime, 37.
Youth's Keepsake, 212.

X

ENOPHON, 130.

Zentler, publisher, 178.

- i

"3

RETURN
TC

LIBRARY SCHOOL LIBRARY

LO

153

RETURN TO the circulation desl< of any
University of California Library
or to the
NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

• 2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(510)642-6753

• 1 -year loans may be recharged by bringing
books to NRLF

• Renewals and recharges may be made 4
days prior to due date. ?

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

^Mm.

JUN 0 4 ^Q9

^^iB^t^'^^^''"''

FOR

®i

12,000(11/95)

WW

uc

I